*  I. 


THE  AMERICAN  BOOKS 

A  LIBRARY  OF  GOOD  CITIZENSHIP 

"The  American  Books"  are  designed  as  a 
series  of  authoritative  manuals,  discussing 
problems  of  interest  in  America  to-day. 


THE  AMERICAN  BOOKS 

THE   AMERICAN   COLLEGE  BY   ISAAC    SHARPLESS 

THE    INDIAN  TO-DAY  BY   CHARLES   A.    EASTMAN 

COST   OF    LIVING  BY    FABIAN    FRANKLIN 

THE   AMERICAN   NAVY  BY  REAR-ADMIRAL   FRENCH  E. 

CHADWICK,  U.  S.  N. 

MUNICIPAL   FREEDOM  BY   OSWALD   RYAN 

AMERICAN   LITERATURE  BY   LEON   KELLNER 

(TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  GERMAN  BY  JULIA  FRANKLIN) 

SOCIALISM   IN   AMERICA  BY   JOHN   MACY 

AMERICAN    IDEALS  BY  CLAYTON  SEDGWICK  COOPER 

THE   AMERICAN    SCHOOL  BY   WALTER   S.  HINCHMAN 

THE    FEDERAL  RESERVE  BY   HENRY  PARKER  WILLIS 

(For  more  extended  notice  of  the  series,  see  the  last  pages 
of  this  book.) 


The  American  Books 

AMERICAN 
IDEALS 


BY 

CLAYTON  SEDGWICK  COOPER 


GARDEN   CITY  NEW   YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
1915 


Copyright,  jp/5,  by 
DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE    &  COMPANY 

All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 

translation  into  foreign  languages, 

including  the  Scandinavian 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

CLAYTON  SEDGWICK  COOPER  was  born  at  Hen 
derson,  Jefferson  County,  New  York,  in  1869. 
He  was  educated  at  Adams  Collegiate  Institute, 
Brown  University  ('94),  Union  and  Rochester 
Theological  Seminaries,  and  has  done  graduate 
work  at  Harvard  and  Columbia  (A.  M.  Colum 
bia,  1907). 

He  served  as  General  Secretary  of  theTwenty- 
Third  Street  Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
New  York  City,  1895-98;  pastor  of  the  Wash 
ington  Street  Baptist  Church,  Lynn,  Mass., 
1 898-1 902 ;  and  College  Secretary  for  Bible  Study 
of  the  International  Young  Men's  Christian  As 
sociation,  1902-1912.  In  his  work  Mr.  Cooper 
has  been  brought  in  touch  with  colleges  and 
college  men  throughout  the  United  States 
and  Canada;  this  led  to  his  travelling  abroad 
to  study  education  and  religious  movements  in 
other  lands.  He  has  made  two  extended  trips 
around  the  world  investigating  educational 
institutions,  particularly  in  England,  North 
Africa,  Egypt,  India,  Malay  States,  the  Philip- 

331257 


Biographical  Note 

pines,  China,  Korea,  and  Japan.  He  has  lectured 
extensively  (for  the  Pond  Lyceum  Bureau  and 
independently)  on  Educational,  Oriental,  and 
Religious  Topics.  He  is  now  co-editor  of  Edu 
cational  Foundations,  New  York,  and  a  frequent 
contributor  to  magazines  and  periodicals. 

Mr.  Cooper  is  also  the  author  of: 

COLLEGE  MEN  AND  THE  BIBLE 

THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  LIFE 

WORLD  WIDE  BIBLE  STUDY 

Why  Go  TO  COLLEGE? 

THE  MAN  OF  EGYPT 

BIBLE  STUDY  IN  THE  WORK  OF  LIFE 

THE  MODERNIZING  OF  THE  ORIENT 


I  am  one  of  those  who  believe  that  the  real  will  never  find  an 
irremovable  basis  till  it  rests  on  the  ideal. 

— James  Russell  Lowell. 

I  respect  the  man  who  knows  distinctly  what  he  wishes. 
The  greater  part  of  all  the  mischief  in  the  world  arises  from  the 
fact  that  men  do  not  sufficiently  understand  their  own  aims. 
They  have  undertaken  to  build  a  tower  and  spend  no  more  labor 
on  the  foundation  than  would  be  necessary  to  erect  a  hut. 

— Goethe. 


PREFACE 

ELIHU  ROOT,  speaking  not  long  since  before  the 
Union  League  Club  of  Philadelphia,  said :  "The 
tendencies  of  a  nation  are  all  that  count." 

Tendencies  in  a  nation  as  in  an  individual  are 
but  the  shadows  of  ideals,  consciously  or  un 
consciously  held  in  the  mind  and  giving  direc- 
.tion  and  dynamic  to  the  forces  of  the  will. 
The  difference  between  men  and  nations  de 
pends  upon  their  answer  to  the  question,  "What 
makes  life  worth  living?"  Find  out  a  country's 
ideals,  and  with  some  certainty  you  can  predict 
her  destiny.  Is  her  ideal  the  song  of  the  sword  ? 
Weltmacht  oder  Niedergang  ?  Then  her  rewards 
will  be  in  the  terms  of  the  sword,  or  in  brute 
force.  Is  her  chief  and  all-absorbing  ideal 
money?  Then  she  must  give  up  hope  of  reach 
ing  the  highest  culture  of  mind  and  spirit.  The 
things  we  imagine  and  admire  in  the  germ  cells 
of  our  brain  inevitably  mould  us;  they  become 
our  masters.  Ideals  are  things  to  be  chosen 
with  some  care,  for  whether  we  know  it  or  not 
they  are  the  gods  before  whom  we  pour  out  our 


x  PREFACE 

costliest  libations,  the  idols  the  light  of  whose 
faces  colors  by  reflection  or  refraction  all  our 
worship. 

It  is  not  altogether  the  attainment  or  the 
non-attainment  of  our  ideals  that  indicates  our 
progress  or  our  power.  Dreams  are  like  ocean 
horizons — they  recede  at  our  approach.  But  if 
we,  like  true  sailors,  keep  our  ships  ever  trained 
toward  those  high  retreating  skies  regardless  of 
wind  and  bad  weather,  we,  like  they,  are  pretty 
sure  to  sail  "beyond  the  sunset." 

It  has  been  with  the  effort  to  catch  some  of 
the  inner  colors  from  which  the  efficient  artist 
hand  of  the  American  is  painting  his  national 
and  individual  portrait,  that  I  have  written  the 
following  pages.  By  looking  into  the  energetic 
faces  of  our  streaming  crowds,  as  well  as  by 
drawing  some  distinguishing  contrasts  between 
ourselves  and  other  nations,  I  have  tried  to 
point  out  some  of  the  strongest  currents  in  our 
present  idealism,  and  I  have  also  ventured  to 
indicate  here  and  there  an  embankment  that 
must  be  strengthened  to  restrain  the  flooding 
tides  threatening  our  dearest  hopes. 

If  I  have  succeeded  in  any  measure  in  fixing 
upon  the  moving  ideal  forces  that  rise  so  fleet- 
ingly  to  the  surface  in  our  varied  and  vast  life 


PREFACE  xi 

and  enterprises,  it  has  been  largely  due  to  a 
wide  circle  of  men  and  women  who  have  afforded 
me  the  inestimable  opportunity  to  view  our 
contemporary  modern  activities  through  their 
eyes. 

The  testimony  of  certain  of  these  people, 
chosen  with  some  care  and  representing  twenty 
different  states  in  the  Union,  I  have  given  in  the 
chapter  entitled  "An  American  Symposium." 

c.  s.  c. 

The  Red  House  by  the  Lake, 
Westcolang,  Pa., 
August,  191$. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAOF 

PREFACE  ix 


I.  WHAT  is  AN  AMERICAN? 3 

1  Personification  of  Activity 

2  A  Time-saver 

3  An  Apostle  of  Bigness 

4  He  Wants  Money 

5  Desire  for  Success    „_ 

II.  UTILITARIAN  IDEALISTS 33 

1  The  Strain  of  Sentiment 

2  The  Democracy  of  Idealism 

3  Idealism  in  the  New  Literature 
.v     4  Sense  of  Humor  and  Reality 

III.  THE  SQUARE  DEAL — BOTH  WAYS.      .       71 

1  Constitutional  Rights 

2  Square  Deal  in  Business 

3  What  is  Equality? 

4  From  Business  to  Brotherhood 

IV.  AMERICAN  VERSUS  ENGLISH  IDEALS     .       99 

1  The  Distinction  of  Merit 

2  Contrast  of  Feeling  and  Expression 

3  Adaptability 

4  Attitude  Toward  Wealth 

V,  AMERICAN  VERSUS  ORIENTAL  IDEALISM     127 

1  Our  Eastern  Rootage 

2  Spiritual  Resemblances 

xiii 


xiv  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

3  Missionary  Aims 

4  Ideas  versus  Action 

5  Romance  and  Mysticism 

VI.  EDUCATION  THE  AMERICAN  PASSION    .     159 

1  Inheritances 

2  New  England  Foundations 

3  Utilitarian  Drifts 

4  Weaknesses 

5  The  Teacher,  the  Turning-point 

VII.  IDEALS  IN  RELIGION 193 

1  Is  the  Church  Adequate? 

2  American  Religious  Nature 

3  Tolerance 

4  Socialized  Religion 

5  Germany  as  an  Example 

6  The  Faith  of  the  Individual 

VIII.  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  THE  IMMIGRANT    .     229 

1  The  Avalanche 

2  America  as  an  Assimilator 

3  Forces  at  Work 

4  Discovery  of  Talent  in  the  Immi 

grant 

IX.  THE  SHADOW  OF  SUCCESS    ....     253 

1  Disregard  for  Law 

2  Business  Inefficiency  Due  to  Haste 

3  Peace  at  any  Price 

4  Love  of  Display  and  Extravagance 

X.  AN  AMERICAN  SYMPOSIUM    ....     287 
A,  i  American  Ideals  as  Seen  by  Amer 
icans 

2  Analysis  of  One  Hundred  Answers 
Concerning  American  Ideals 


Contents  xv 

CHAPTER  PACK 

3  American  Weakness  as  Seen  by  Con 

temporary  Americans 

4  Replies  Analyzed 

5  The  Triumph  of  Our  Ideals 

XI.  AMERICA  COMING  OF  AGE    ....     333 

1  The  Providential  Republic 

2  At  the  Beginning  of  the  Enterprise 

3  Peace  and  Humanity  the  Final  Ideals 

INDEX 355 


CHAPTER  I 
WHAT  IS  AN  AMERICAN? 

The  bigger  the  work,  the  greater  the  joy  in  doing 
it.  The  whole-hearted  striving  and  wrestling  with 
difficulties,  the  laying  hold  with  firm  grip  and  level 
head  in  calm  resolution  of  the  monster  and  tugging 
and  toiling  and  wrestling  at  it,  to-day,  to-morrow, 
and  the  next  day,  until  it  is  done — it  is  the  soldier's 
creed  of  forward,  ever  forward;  it  is  the  man's  creed 
that  for  this  task  he  has  been  born. 

HENRY  M.  STANLEY. 


CHAPTER  I 
WHAT  IS  AN  AMERICAN? 

AMERICA,  like  Africa,  is  a  land  of  surprises.  To 
a  foreigner,  Uncle  Sam's  citizens  have  been 
difficult  to  analyze,  not  because  they  are  so 
many  and  various,  but  by  reason  of  their 
rapidly  changing  moods.  Like  the  Oriental, 
who,  just  as  you  think  you  have  at  last  dis 
cerned  his  true  nature,  does  something  to  upset 
entirely  all  your  calculations,  the  American  has 
the  habit  of  disarranging  the  customary  char 
acterizations  of  the  foreigner  by  unlooked-for 
manifestat^is  of  traits  as  puzzling  as  they  are 
complex. 

The  perplexity  and  paradox  of  the  American 
character  has  been  summarized  by  two  French 
collaborators,  who  wrote  some  years  since  under 
the  title:  "L'Oncle  Sam  Chez  Lui"- 

Formed  out  of  an  aggregation  of  different  races, 
the  American  people  forms  a  race  by  itself — individ 
ual,  and  from  many  points  of  view  very  superior. 

3 


:4'}  American  Ideals 

It  is  as  ridiculous  to  say  that  it  is  solely  Anglo-Saxon 
as  that  it  is  Latin.  The  American  has  neither  the 
egotism  of  the  Englishman  nor  the  arrogance  of  the 
German,  but  he  possesses  their  practical  sense;  he 
has  not  the  light-heartedness  of  the  Frenchman,  but 
his  suppleness;  he  has  not  the  obsequious  politeness 
of  the  Italian  or  the  Spaniard,  but  a  profound  respect 
for  established  institutions.  He  is  a  man  of  surprises. 
One  appreciates  and  esteems  him,  one  does  not 
judge  him. 

In  a  sense  the  problem  of  disentangling  from 
the  intricately  woven  web  of  a  new  and  rapidly 
evolving  civilization  the  inner  threads  of  motive 
and  ideal,  is  not  mitigated  by  the  fact  that  the 
attempt  is  made  by  an  American  and  not  a 
stranger.  The  tendency  to  overlook  the  obvious, 
and  the  ever-present  impediment  of  narrow 
perspective  and  lack  of  detachment,  are  the 
almost  inevitable  accompaniments  of  an  inter 
pretation,  ever  so  desirously  fair,  made  by  one 
who  writes  of  his  own  and  not  an  alien  land. 
It  may  be  a  solacing  compensation  to  the  native 
expounder  to  believe  that  what  he  loses  in 
landscape  he  makes  up  in  light,  in  that 
illuminating  and  intuitive  understanding  rising 
out  of  common  participation  and  traditions, 
almost  a  prerequisite  in  the  endeavor  to  pierce 


What  is  an  American  5 

below  the  external  signs  of  national  changes 
to  the  elemental  nature  and  vital  aims  of  a  race. 
^What  is  an  American?  The  question  is  saved 
from  ineptitude  by  our  present  need  to  know 
well  its  answer.  With  the  guns  of  Europe 
reverberating  almost  in  our  very  ears,  with 
America  omnipresent  in  the  hopes  and  hearts  of 
wellnigh  every  nation  beneath  the  circling 
stars,  with  our  forty-eight  closely  united  com 
monwealths  opulent  beyond  even  their  fairest 
dreams,  with  our  great  cities  struggling  in  the 
gestation  of  millions  of  as  yet  unformed  alien 
populations,  with  scientific  and  industrial 
achievements  staggering  the  imagination,  with 
possibilities  exceeded  by  nothing  save  our  prob 
lems,  it  is  a  fit  time  to  know  ourselves  and  our 
ideals. 

In  the  light  of  our  responsibilities,  it  is  en 
couraging  to  be  able  to  say  that  the  American 
is  first  of  all  a  man  of  action.  He  is  the  person 
ification  of  the  life  dynamic.  Activity  is  the 
basic  law  of  his  being.  He  is  the  lover  of  huge 
and  hard  tasks,  for  these  furnish  resistance  to 
his  energetic  will.  Obstacles  to  him,  as  to 
Napoleon,  are  just  things  to  be  overcome.  Dr. 
Bowring  once  wrote  to  a  tyrannous  French 
minister:  "Sir,  I  am  calm  but  energetic."  The 


6  American  Ideals 

American  is  seldom  calm,  but  he  is  invariably 
energetic.  Every  active  adjective  is  the  epit 
ome  of  him — enthusiastic — inquisitive — eager 
— earnest — affectionate — vivacious — loquacious 
• — sprightly — adaptable — acquisitive — extrava 
gant — busy — hurried — zestful.  He  is  the  highly 
vitalized  embodiment  of  the  moving  life  prin 
ciple,  always  livingly  creative,  never  static. 

The  citizen  of  the  United  States  is  by  nature 
and  by  training  a  business  man,  and  business 
to  him  spells  busyness.  His  first  and  foremost 
ideal  is  to  work;  "immersed  in  business"  is  the 
colloquial  phrase.  A  sickroom  to  him  is  a 
prison,  and  there  is  nothing  more  forlorn  be 
neath  the  sun  than  an  American  business  man 
on  an  extended  holiday.  Mr.  S.  S.  McClure  in 
his  autobiography  has  drawn  a  composite  picture 
of  a  business  man  in  these  Western  lands:  "At 
college,"  he  writes,  "everything  went  well 
with  me  until  Friday  night,  and  then  a  blank 
stretched  before  me.  It  always  seemed  a  hard 
pull  until  Monday.  I  was  never  able  to  lay 
aside  the  interests  and  occupations  of  my  life 
with  any  pleasure,  and  I  have  always  experi 
enced  a  sense  of  dreariness  on  going  into  houses 
where  one  was  supposed  to  leave  them  outside. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  have  one  set  of  inter- 

'J 


What  is  an  American  7 

ests  to  work  with  and  another  to  play  with. 
This  is  my  misfortune  but  it  is  true." 

Work  to  the  American  is  more  welcome  than 
the  flowers  in  May.  Many  a  man  will  tell 
you  that  he  has  never  stopped  working  long 
enough  to  consider  or  to  formulate  his  ideals. 
The  American  exemplifies  Oscar  Wilde's  epi 
gram  that  it's  easier  to  do  things  than  to  talk 
about  them.  The  late  president  of  Chicago 
University,  Dr.  William  R.  Harper,  when  dying 
said  that  he  looked  forward  to  the  next  world  as 
a  place  where  he  would  have  more  work  to 
do.  The  American  plans  many  times  the 
amount  of  work  he  can  perform  and  as  a  conse 
quence  he  frequently  resembles  the  old  jockey's 
horse — "all  action  and  no  go" — but  he  is  seldom 
an  idler.  Even  the  rich  get  nervous  prostration 
and  the  sanitarium  habit  in  their  ceaseless 
efforts  to  spend  their  money  for  social  better 
ment  and  in  "uplift"  activities.  The  days  are 
not  long  enough  for  the  American  to  accomplish; 
he  therefore  steams  ahead  under  forced  draft, 
and  usually  at  the  top  notch  of  his  physical 
reserve.  His  play  even  takes  the  form  of 
fighting  contests,  and  he  has  coined  the  phrase, 
"speeding  up,"  to  express  the  tightening  of  the 
bands  on  his  machines  and  the  ever-increasing 


8  American  Ideals 

pressure  upon  his  workmen  to  keep  pace  with 
his  engines.  The  significance  of  life  to  him  is 
doing  something  and  doing  it  strong.  He  is 
explosive  often,  staccato  and  shrill  of  speech, 
since  his  pace  is  too  fast  to  cultivate  the  low 
notes.  His  tones  are  consistent  with  the  crash 
ing  noise  of  industrial  and  commercial  and  city- 
filled  battle  that  is  music  in  his  ears.  To  live 
"  Diogenically"  would  be  a  sheep's  paradise, 
and  idle  leisure  is  flat  degeneration.  In  America 
the  non-producer  and  the  idler  are  brotherly 
terms,  and  both  are  far  more  damning  epithets 
than  the  sobriquet,  "beachcomber,"  to  the 
colonizing  Britisher.  Action  with  enthusiasm 
is  a  biological  necessity  in  this  land,  and  the 
typical  denizen  of  these  United  States  (as  Euro 
peans  say  we  like  to  call  our  country)  possesses 
rather  generally  what  Wordsworth  called :  "The 
self-applauding  sincerity  of  a  heated  mind.*' 

It  is  because  of  this  active,  intense,  and  closely 
concentrated  note  to  which  the  American 
pitches  his  song,  that  he  becomes  vulnerable  to 
the  charge  of  provincialism  and  a  bored  specta 
tor  of  the  historic  and  the  far-away.  The  man 
whose  slogan  is  to  "act,  act  in  the  living  pres 
ent,"  cannot  be  expected  to  linger  long  over 
such  headlines  as  the  "Ruins  of  Timgad,"  or 


What  is  an  American  9 

the  "Memoirs  of  Potiphar";  these  belong  to  the 
Past,  and  he  is  distinctly  a  disciple  of  the  Pres 
ent.  Was  it  not  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
who  said  that  "an  American  finds  it  as  hard  to 
call  back  anything  over  two  or  three  centuries 
old  as  a  sucking  pump  to  draw  up  water  from 
the  depth  of  over  33  feet  and  a  fraction!" 

The  point  not  to  be  overlooked  is  that  the 
man  who  will  look  blank  at  the  suggestion  of 
neo-Platonism,  and  wake  up  when  you  begin 
to  talk  about  building  a  fifty-story  skyscraper 
in  nine  months,  has  a  marvellous  capacity 
and  a  striking  avidity  for  present-day  motivity. 
One  would  not  think  of  characterizing  the 
American  as  Carlyle  pictured  Novalis—  "he 
sits" — but  rather  in  that  more  moving  phrase 
in  which  the  Scotch  apostle  of  action  once 
wrote  to  his  friend,  Henry  Inglis:  "Diligence, 
unwearied,  steadfast  Endeavor:  like  the  stars 
unhasting,  unresting!  This  is  the  sceptre  with 
which  man  rules  his  Destiny;  and  though 
fragile  as  a  reed,  removes  mountains,  spiritual 
as  well  as  physical."  Into  every  exertion  and 
essay,  into  every  discussion  and  every  dream, 
the  American  presses  this  inherent  active  im 
pulse;  without  it  he  would  be  a  simulacrum 
merely  of  his  national  or  his  racial  type.  It  is  at 


io  American  Ideals 

times  his  weakness;  it  is  more  often  a  magic 
key  unlocking  for  him  every  storehouse  of 
power  and  opening  doors  of  deliverance  from 
every  dilemma. 

Closely  mixed  with  the  active  currents  of  his 
blood  is  the  American's  penchant  for  saving 
time.  It  is  almost  a  mania  in  this  country 
where  specialists  for  organizing  and  eliminating 
and  systematizing  have  created  in  these  latter 
days  a  full-grown  profession — Efficiency  Engi 
neering,  a  new  vocation  of  timesaving,  a  brand- 
new  germ  working  as  methodically  and  fatally 
as  natural  law  against  the  national  octopus  of 
waste  and  extravagance.  The  idea  is  popular 
since  it  fits  the  nature  of  a  people  who  are 
always  striving  to  get  ahead,  even  ahead  of 
themselves.  In  a  world  eminent  for  its  before- 
handedness  and  anticipation,  where  the  people 
read  the  evening  edition  of  their  newspapers  at 
noon,  where  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  is  issued 
on  the  previous  Wednesday,  where  the  Sep 
tember  numbers  of  the  monthly  magazines  ap 
pear  early  in  August,  the  lines  of  Seneca  are 
appropriate: 

Who  murders  Time, 

He  crushes  in  the  bud  a  power  ethereal, 
Only  not  adored. 


What  Is  an  American  n 

The  American  free  translation  of  these  lines 
reads  somewhat  more  practically  than  the  Ro 
man  original  in  Benjamin  Franklin's  working 
room:  "Lose  no  time;  be  always  employed 
in  something  useful;  cut  off  all  unnecessary 


actions." 


The  "  Yankee  notions"  of  our  father's  days 
were  in  the  majority  of  cases  time  or  material 
saving  notions.  The  inventions  of  the  Yankee 
sons  have  enlarged  these  ideals  of  time  pres 
ervation  until  now  we  sow  and  reap  and  gather 
into  barns  at  the  tune  of  timesaving  machinery; 
we  print,  we  sew,  we  wash  our  clothes,  we  write 
our  letters,  we  clean  our  cotton,  we  light  our 
homes,  we  talk  to  our  distant  friends,  we  anni 
hilate  space  in  our  subways  and  on  our  limited 
trains,  all  by  timesavers  made  in  America.  We 
have  carried  our  individuality  in  these  inven 
tions  around  the  world.  Not  long  since  I  re 
ceived  a  letter  from  a  Bedouin  chief  from  the 
edge  of  the  Lybian  desert  asking  me  to  buy  and 
send  to  him  five  hundred  tons  of  coal  for  use  in 
his  American-made  steam  machinery  now  em 
ployed  on  thousands  of  acreage  in  the  Fayoum 
district  of  the  Nile  country.  With  my  own 
eyes  I  have  seen  our  country's  steam  plows  and 
threshers  and  familiar  American  harvesters 


12  American  Ideals 

not  only  in  the  valleys  of  the  Upper  Nile,  but 
in  the  millet  fields  of  India  and  in  the  distant 
islands  of  the  Southern  Seas.  Any  traveller, 
indeed,  can  feel  the  touch  of  home  in  the  Orient, 
with  the  buzz  of  the  Singer  sewing  machine 
in  his  ears — always  a  wonder  of  time-preserving 
Yankee  genius,  as  omnipresent  in  these  antip 
odal  lands  as  is  the  typewriter,  the  telephone, 
the  cotton  gin,  and  the  Edison  incandescent 
lights. 

This  almost  affectionate  regard  for  time,  while 
it  may  be  a  secondary  aim,  is  linked  intimately 
with  his  work  and  the  things  he  most  earnestly 
desires.  The  business  man  wants  more  time  to 
do  business,  but  he  also  wishes  his  saved  time 
to  spend  on  the  particular  occupations  at  home 
or  abroad  that  are  nearest  his  heart.  The 
American  is  by  no  means  the  blind  and  be 
nighted  hustler  he  is  so  frequently  painted  by 
the  transient  stranger;  he  has  as  a  rule  a  method 
in  the  madness  of  his  plunging,  importunate  life. 
He  works  on  the  very  sensible  principle  that  if 
a  man  is  ever  to  get  any  time  for  himself,  or  his 
family  or  friends  in  the  swift  competitive  strug 
gle  of  American  modernity,  he  must  move 
quickly  and  withal  save  every  false  motion. 
He  is  not  made  up  fundamentally  on  a  pattern 


What  is  an  American  13 

so  different  from  that  of  the  rest  of  the  world  of 
men.  The  climatic  conditions  and  the  prod 
igality  of  nature  have  something  to  do  with  his 
ideas  and  his  ideals.  He  happens  to  be  born 
in  that  section  of  the  universe  where  clothes 
are  in  vogue  and  where  bananas  and  cocoanuts 
upon  which  some  people  subsist  grow  sparingly. 
He  has  learned,  moreover,  that  the  person  who 
is  not  careful  about  saving  his  time  is  like  the 
man  who  preserves  the  like  attitude  to  his 
money — he  never  has  any.  In  other  words,  he 
is  determined,  however  much  he  may  enjoy  his 
work,  to  get  it  done  and  be  moving  on,  and  to 
that  worthy  end  he  is  eager  to  employ  every 
friction-removing  and  time-husbanding  device 
known  to  the  contriving  and  talented  Yankee 
brain.  It  is  intelligible  to  the  keen  observer 
that  quality  of  work  and  service  are  sacrificed  at 
times  on  this  altar  of  expedition  and  dispatch — 
idols  looming  large  in  the  American's  eyes. 

American  ideals  also  gather  about  big  things; 
they  flourish  in  the  atmosphere  of  immensities. 
The  man  in  America  has  discovered  that  in  this 
Land  of  Promise  it  is  easier  to  do  the  big  thing 
than  the  small  thing.  A  business  man  came 
to  me  not  long  ago  with  the  lament  that  he 
failed  in  his  undertaking  because  he  had  at- 


14  American  Ideals 

tempted  too  small  a  proposition — it  only  in 
volved  a  million  dollars — "If  I  had  only  made 
it  a  five-million-dollar  scheme/'  said  he  rue 
fully,  "I  could  have  reached  the  attention  of  the 
big  financiers." 

America  is  a  quarter  section,  not  a  square 
foot  country.  It  is  the  land  of  the  biggest  lakes, 
the  longest  rivers,  the  fastest  trains,  the  tallest 
buildings,  the  land  of  the  huge  corporation,  and 
the  spacious  farm,  and  the  prodigious  industrial 
enterprise.  The  inhabitant  of  this  country 
of  bigness  feels  the  urge  of  these  immeasur 
able  interests;  therefore  his  fascination  for 
large  figures  and  enormous  scales  of  measure 
ment.  He  feels  that  he  must  keep  up  to  the 
pace  of  business,  or  get  out  of  the  game,  or  be 
run  over.  One  advance  step  necessitates  a 
longer  stride  to  follow.  He  must  always  have 
his  "next."  A  story  is  told  of  an  American 
humorist  who  stammered.  He  removed  from 
Baltimore  to  New  York,  where  he  was  asked 
by  a  friend  if  he  made  as  many  jokes  as  he  used 
to  do  in  Baltimore. 

"M-m-more!"  he  replied.  "B-b-bigger  town!" 
It  is  not  altogether  edifying  to  the  foreigner 
to  hear  the  American  drifting  easily  into  con 
versation  about  his  country  that  produces  more 


What  is  an  American  15 

cotton  and  more  corn  than  all  the  rest  of  the 
earth  combined,  a  wheat  crop  doubling  that  of 
any  other  nation,  or  coal  mining  a  million  tons 
yearly  in  advance  of  any  land  under  the  sun. 
There  are  occasions  when  modesty  should 
restrain  even  the  arithmetic-loving  citizen  from 
telling  the  Englishman  that  his  country  trebles 
the  Britisher's  production  of  steel  and  iron,  or 
confronting  the  made-in-Germany  subject  with 
the  particularly  unpalatable  fact  that  the  United 
States  doubles  the  Teuton's  output  in  the  same 
commodity;  or,  for  example,  when  he  regales  his 
guest  from  across  the  seas  by  telling  him  of  the 
factory  that  turns  out  1,50x3  locomotives  yearly, 
or  the  Chicago  Harvester  plant  that  covers 
nearly  a  hundred  and  fifty  acres,  and  employs 
upward  of  twenty-five  thousand  workers.  Big 
and  swift  business  always  fascinates  the  Amer 
ican  mind.  The  automobile  company  at  the 
Panama  Exposition  in  San  Francisco,  assem 
bling  and  putting  together  an  automobile  every 
six  minutes,  never  fails  of  an  attentive  audience. 
It  is  small  wonder  that  the  bigness  obsessed 
Yankee  gives  the  impression  of  having  assimi 
lated  the  contents  of  a  world  almanac,  and  one 
understands  why  as  a  tourist  in  other  climes 
his  questions  naturally  take  the  form  of  "  How 


1 6  American  Ideals 

big  is  it  ?  How  many  ?  How  high  ?  How  long  ? 
How  many  inhabitants?"  or  "What  did  she 
cost?" 

This  spirit  of  bigness  is  contagious.  It  gets 
into  the  blood  of  the  foreigner  as  truly  as  it 
intoxicates  the  native-born  American  in  the 
great  machine  shops  and  throbbing  mills  of  the 
Middle  West  and  East,  where  the  whirring  of 
the  spindle  glands,  and  the  grinding  of  the 
steam  shovels,  and  the  rattle  of  the  drills  upon 
the  skyscrapers,  are  more  enthralling  music 
than  the  pipes  of  a  great  organ  of  a  European 
cathedral.  There  is  a  sense  in  the  American 
heart  of  realizing  his  ideals,  and  this  sense 
makes  the  dreamer  and  the  worker  one.  There 
is  so  little  space  between  his  visions  and  his 
realities  that  he  rarely  gets  time  to  become  a 
visionary.  As  he  works  in  his  factory  and 
welds  iron  to  iron,  there  is  something  in  the 
air  that  tells  him  that  the  hammers  of  other 
tens  of  thousands  like  him  are  ringing  on  the 
new  anvils  of  his  own  land,  and  though  the 
thought  is  inarticulate,  it  is  never  quite  absent 
from  him  that  the  clanging  of  his  machinery  is 
heard  around  the  world.  The  American  has 
been  called  provincial,  he  is  noted  for  the  fact 
that  he  believes  his  country  can  produce  and 


What  is  an  American  17 

can  do  whatever  can  be  produced  or  accom 
plished  in  any  land  upon  the  globe.  Is  he  so 
much  deluded  in  his  thinking? 

Certainly  the  nation's  wealth  recently  reported 
by  the  Bureau  of  the  Census  is  not  intended 
to  discourage  his  quenchless  optimism  regard 
ing  materialities.  These  figures  show  that  the 
rate  of  increase  from  1904  to  1912  reveals  the 
fact  that  in  the  former  year  the  estimated 
wealth  of  the  country,  exclusive  of  tax-exempted 
real  property,  was  $100,000,000,000,  and  in  1912 
this  wealth  had  mounted  to  $175,000,000,000, 
or  an  advance  of  75  per  cent,  for  eight  years, 
an  increase  at  the  rate  of  95  per  cent,  in  a  decade. 
This  is  a  progress  of  material  increase  surpassing 
anything  heretofore  recorded  in  this  country, 
as  it  distances  any  like  comparison  in  any  nation 
beneath  the  sun. 

The  manufacturer  of  machinery,  as  well  as 
the  worker  with  tools  and  implements,  finds  a 
decided  stimulus  to  speeding  up  his  brain  and  his 
hand  in  the  realization  that  the  value  of  manu 
facturing  machinery,  tools,  and  implements, 
increased  from  two  and  one  half  billion  dollars 
in  1900  to  three  and  one  third  billion  dollars  in 
1904,  and  to  six  and  one  tenth  billion  dollars 
in  1912,  thus  surpassing  the  rate  of  increase 


1 8  American  Ideals 

in  real  estate  or  in  the  value  of  general 
wealth.  The  electrical  engineer,  moreover,  and 
every  one  of  his  myriad  workers,  who  never 
cease  to  revere  the  name  of  Edison,  will  tell 
you,  with  a  pride  of  being  a  real  part  of  it,  that 
the  value  of  telephone  systems  increased  from 
four  hundred  million  dollars  in  1900  to  a  figure  far 
above  the  billion  dollar  mark  in  1912.  The  manu 
facturer  or  the  resident  who  shows  you  through 
his  electric-light  plant  will  feel  something 
not  upon  the  program  as  he  tells  you  that 
the  privately  owned  central  electric-light  and 
power  stations  grew  in  volume  in  America  be 
tween  the  years  1900  and  1912  from  four  hun 
dred  million  dollars  to  more  than  two  billion, 
representing  one  of  the  most  striking  develop 
ments  in  this  scientific  age. 

Why  does  this  invigorate  the  American  or 
the  newly  naturalized  citizen?  It  is  not  simply 
that  he  may  be  able  to  gloat  over  his  less  for 
tunate  brothers  in  other  lands,  though  at  times 
he  reveals  an  unchastened  eagerness  to  play 
up  his  country's  material  progress.  It  is  be 
cause  he  feels  that  he  is  an  integral  part  of  this 
opportunity,  that  he  can  have  a  share  in  this 
ever  more  abundant  increase.  He  realizes,  in 
fact,  that  his  share  only  waits  upon  his  renewed 


What  is  an  American  19 

efforts,  his  enlarging  aim,  and  his  more  persist 
ent  patience.  He  reads  the  figures  of  the  per 
capita  wealth  of  his  country,  which  amounted  in 
1850  to  $308  for  each  inhabitant,  and  he  com 
pares  this  with  the  fact  that  in  1912  this 
per  capita  wealth  rose  to  $1,836  for  each 
inhabitant,  or  an  increase  in  the  eight  years 
from  1904  to  1912  of  nearly  50  per  cent.,  or  at 
the  rate  of  about  63  per  cent,  in  a  single  decade. 
The  whole  effect  upon  him  is  one  of  stimulation, 
and  a  sense  of  being  in  a  country  that  has 
not  stopped,  but  rather  is  just  crossing  the 
threshold  into  its  real  maturity;  it  impresses 
him  with  the  sense  of  youth  and  limitless 
resource.  It  makes  him  believe  not  only  that 
what  man  has  done  he  can  do,  but  as  he  judges 
from  the  achievements  before  his  eyes,  he  comes 
to  the  conclusion  that  he  can  do  what  no  man 
has  ever  done  before  by  reason  of  the  enlarged 
opportunities  stretching  before  him.  If  he  has 
been  called  a  "smiling  braggart,"  it  is  because 
of  his  confident  belief  in  seeming  impossibilities. 
His  visions  are  of  deeds  that  only  the  bold  can 
conceive. 

He  not  only  sees  the  future  painted  in  the 
terms  of  a  prosperity  whose  boundaries  have 
not  yet  been  limited,  but  also  in  the  terms  of 


2O  American  Ideals 

personalities  as  rich  and  as  miraculous  as  his 
country's  progress.  His  contemporary  life  all 
about  him  "shines  in  the  sudden  making  of 
splendid  names."  His  association  is  with  men, 
to  use  Lowell's  phrase,  with  empires  in  their 
brains,  crownless  empires  of  social  and  indus 
trial  progress.  He  dares  with  an  abandon  that 
includes,  not  simply  the  past,  but  also  the  co 
operation  of  his  children  and  his  children's 
children.  He  is  far  less  the  creature  of  the 
moment  than  is  the  Britisher  who  has  sighted 
the  limitation  of  opportunity.  He  feels  the 
mariner's  instinct  that 

"  Leagues  beyond  these  leagues  there  is  more  sea." 

There  must  come  a  time,  perforce,  when  this 
irresistible,  youthful  confidence  in  great  ma 
terial  achievement  will  be  tempered  by  closer 
confines.  At  present,  however,  the  tide  is  run 
ning  strong  out  to  the  sea  of  unbordered  big 
ness. 

Because  of  his  devotion  to  big  activities  and 
innumerable  timesaving  devices,  which  may 
be  explained  by  the  consideration  of  his  envir 
oning  geography  and  his  success  in  the  scientific 
subjugation  of  the  universe,  the  American  has 


What  is  an  American  21 

been  called  of  all  men  everywhere  the  most 
thoroughly  devoted  apostle  to  the  almighty 
dollar.  This  has  been  called  the  "post-card 
view"  of  Americans.  It  is  true  and  it  is  not 
true.  Taken  alone  it  is  like  all  such  statements, 
lacking  both  background,  perspective,  and  at 
mosphere. 

To  be  sure  the  American  likes  money,  for  it 
is  the  means  toward  the  accomplishment  of  his 
huge  desires.  If  he  is  peculiar  in  this  respect 
of  wanting  money  to  the  Englishman,  to  the 
Frenchman,  to  Germans,  Egyptians,  Japanese, 
and  Chinese,  it  is  only  because  he  has  outstripped 
certain  of  these  people  in  the  success  and 
rapidity  with  which  he  has  acquired  it;  and 
also  because, possibly,  of  his  habit  of  not  being  so 
carefully  guarded  in  the  revelation  of  his  ideals 
in  this  direction.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  eco 
nomic  ideal  in  some  form  or  other,  and  for  some 
purpose  or  other,  is  the  underlying  aim  in  every 
nation,  unless  we  have  failed  to  judge  rightly 
national  tendencies  as  they  exist  to-day.  The 
"full  dinner  pail"  may  not  be  a  cultural  phrase, 
but  it  is  exceedingly  elemental  in  the  life  of 
nations;  as  the  old  Ettrick  shepherd,  James 
Hogg,  once  remarked,  "I  defy  the  utmost  power 
of  language  to  disgust  me  wi'  a  gude  denner." 


22  American  Ideals 

That  one  nation  wants  money  for  military 
and  manufacturing  purposes,  another  for  com 
merce,  another  for  artistic  or  pleasurable 
satisfactions,  or  still  others  for  making  of  their 
people  a  world  power,  or  for  the  chance  to 
worship  their  ancestors  more  elaborately,  is  a 
matter  irrelevant  to  the  common  initial  aim  to 
get  wealth.  Outside  of  a  few  ignorant  fellaheen 
in  the  Nile  valley  and  certain  East  Indian 
ryots  who  secrete  or  bury  or  melt  up  English 
gold  for  their  wives'  ornaments,  by  reason  of  the 
long  memories  of  Turkish  tax  oppression,  or  the 
natural  suspicion  of  the  British  Raj  whom  their 
isolation  and  their  superstition  have  prevented 
them  from  understanding,  I  fail  to  find  many 
hoarders  of  money  for  money's  sake.  To  call 
any  people  on  earth  a  dollar-worshipping  nation, 
save  as  dollars  signify  opportunity  to  follow 
their  particular  ideals,  is  to  bandy  words  mean- 
inglessly. 

Of  no  people  on  earth  is  the  reputation  of 
worshipping  gold  per  se  further  from  the  fact 
than  the  Americans.  The  enormous  material 
expansion  of  the  country  and  the  consequent 
amassing  of  wealth  and  the  free  spending  of  the 
same  has  thrown  out  of  balance  at  times  the 
proper  ratio  between  wealth  and  the  purposes 


What  is  an  American  23 

for  which  it  has  been  consciously  acquired. 
People  at  home  and  abroad  have  not  been  slow 
to  raise  the  danger  signals,  and  a  sensitive  peo 
ple  have  occasionally  exhibited  signs,  outward 
chiefly,  of  disparaging  the  means  by  which  the 
nation's  ideals  have  been  advanced.  Mr.  Car 
negie,  for  example,  has  talked  and  written  con 
siderably  about  the  disgrace  of  dying  rich,  and 
Mr.  Rockefeller  has  shown  his  diary  of  system 
atic  giving  for  the  edification  of  young  men— 
both  withal  after  the  event  of  great  riches.  As 
a  proof  of  the  inconsequence  of  money,  it  is 
about  as  influential  in  changing  private,  public, 
or  world  opinion  on  these  matters  as  the  wide- 
eyed  wonder  of  Great  Britain  that  Germany 
should  see  the  value  or  necessity  of  colonies. 

The  average  American  goes  on  believing 
that  money  is  power,  power  to  get  more  money, 
yes,  and  also  power  to  secure  the  comforts 
and  the  necessities  of  homes  and  happy  fami 
lies,  travel,  and  enough  of  leisure  to  take  the 
grind  out  of  work.  In  America,  as  throughout 
the  world,  the  economic  urge  is  powerful  and 
omnipresent.  The  citizen  sees  that  the  vast 
majority  of  family  troubles  trace  their  begin 
nings,  if  the  records  of  the  divorce  courts  are 
dependable,  to  financial  struggles  and  misunder- 


24  American  Ideals 

standings  regarding  money.  He  finds  himself 
in  the  relentless  grip  of  the  high  cost  of  living 
in  the  great  cities;  he  feels  the  necessity, 
never  before  so  obligatory,  of  sending  his 
children  to  personally  supervised  private  schools 
which  will  mitigate  in  some  measure  the  ever- 
decreasing  attention  he  has  been  able  to  give 
their  moral  and  social  training  at  home.  The 
rapidly  expanding  interest  in  art,  music,  books, 
and  country  life,  is  a  sword  of  Damocles  over 
his  head,  whose  edge  is  sharpened  by  the  words, 
"Get  money  or  I  fall!"  The  well-nigh  pro 
hibitory  price  of  eating  and  feeing  in  the  first- 
class  city  restaurants  in  order  that  dancers 
and  fiddlers  may  live;  the  price  of  being  sick, 
the  fashion  of  getting  well,  the  support  of  the 
changing  season  in  clothes,  the  sovereignty 
of  the  automobile,  and  the  calamitous  fear  of 
being  written  down  to  American  oblivion  under 
the  title  of  not  "looking  prosperous" — these 
with  many  another  reason,  as  strong  and  as 
specious,  make  niggardliness  a  sin  more  dif 
ficult  to  find  in  America  than  cocoanuts  in 
Iceland.  It  is  partially,  not  wholly,  for  causes 
such  as  these  that  the  rank  and  file  of  Ameri 
cans,  unlike  the  middle-class  Englishman  or 
Continentals  in  their  satisfied  resignation  to 


What  is  an  American  25 

caste  or  autocratic  fixities,  feel  in  their  demo 
cratic  training  that  they  have  a  right  to  have, 
and  indeed  must  have,  everything  or  nearly 
everything  that  any  one  else  possesses,  thus 
atoning  in  part  for  early  disadvantages  of  birth 
and  education.  In  other  words,  money  is  the 
hand  of  America's  achievement.  It  is  the 
grade  up  to  her  higher  mountain.  It  is  not  her 
head  nor  her  heart,  but  it  is  one  of  the  mighty 
means  toward  her  individual  and  her  national 
strength.  Americans  are  idealists  engaged  in  a 
practical  task,  and  wealth  is  one  of  the  rungs  in  X 
the  ladder  by  which  they  mount.  At  times,  look 
ing  at  things  superficially,  it  would  seem  that 
Americans,  like  Emerson's  sea  shells  washed 
clear  of  the  sea, 

Had  left  their  beauty  on  the  shore 

With  the  sun  and  the  sand  and  the  wild  uproar. 

It  may  seem  a  sordid  estimation  of  a  nation's 
advance  or  idealism,  and  it  may  bring  a  patron 
izing  smile  to  the  lips  of  the  cultured  Euro 
pean  even  to  speak  of  it;  that  the  money  ideal 
gives  a  fresh  brace  to  the  American  spirit  and 
an  additional  spur  to  his  feet  for  the  road  ahead, 
filled  for  him  with  ever  new  and  widening  vistas 


26  American  Ideals 

of  accomplishment,  personal  and  national,  is 
simply  another  way  of  saying  that  the  spirit  of 
man  has  always  sought  means  by  which  he  may 
subdue  by  his  activity  and  wealth  all  intractable 
things. 

This  is  to  suggest  that  beyond  the  sway  of  the 
dollar,  and  only  associated  with  it  indirectly, 
as  the  painter's  brush  is  connected  with  the 
ideal  of  the  picture  in  the  mind  of  the  artist, 
lies  the  American's  desire  for  success.  This  suc 
cess  desire  is  not  measurable  in  his  own  mind, 
if  it  is  in  the  minds  of  others  who  know  him  only 
transiently,  with  a  mere  sordid  accumulation  of 
wealth.  Some  of  the  most  revered  Americans 
were  poor  men,  and  among  them  have  been 
the  nation's  most  beloved  heroes,  presidents, 
generals,  educators,  physicians,  and  men  of  the 
bar.  Shortly  before  his  death  I  met  Jacob 
Riis  in  the  Middle  West,  engaged  in  a  laborious 
lecture  tour  when  his  physicians  had  ordered 
him  to  his  bed.  He  was  working  because  his 
lifelong  efforts  of  building  up  a  sentiment  for 
social  betterment  of  his  country's  "other  half," 
the  less  privileged  half  in  this  world's  goods, 
had  left  him  little  chance  or  thought  for  making 
or  saving  money.  John  Muir,  who  has  left  a 
rich  legacy  to  his  countrymen,  like  so  many 


What  is  an  American  27 

thousands  of  writers  and  American  idealists, 
was  poor.  He  was  a  close  friend  of  Mr.  E.  H. 
Harriman,  the  multi-millionaire  railroad  king. 
One  day  Mr.  Muir  surprised  his  wealthy  friend 
by  saying,  "Harriman,  you  know  I  am  a  richer 
man  than  you  are?" 

44 Yes?"  said  Harriman,  with  a  question  in  his 
tone.  "Because,"  continued  Muir,  "I  have  all 
the  money  I  want,  and  you  haven't." 

This  was  the  same  Harriman,  however,  who,  \ 
when  he  was  under  fire  for  certain  business  \ 
methods  which  ceased  to  be  regarded  exactly 
legitimate  some  years  since  in  the  United  States, 
was  asked  to  give  explanation  to  his  detractors. 
He  turned  in  his  office  chair  and  swept  with  his 
hand  the  railroad  maps  that  covered  the  walls, 
the  maps  of  the  Harriman  system,  piercing  the 
Rockies  and  opening  the  East  on  a  straight 
track  to  the  Golden  Gate.  "These,"  said  he, 
"are  my  explanation!" 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  spirit  of  honor 
which  made  Mr.  Samuel  Clemens  (the  man 
whom  the  nation  admires  as  one  of  its  great 
literary  pioneers,  and  with  whom  no  one  con 
nects  money  ideals)  buckle  down  to  his  arduous 
lectures  and  writing  at  an  age  when  he  might 
have  retired  gracefully.  It  was  not  because 


28  American  Ideals 

he  wanted  money  for  himself;  it  was  because 
he  had  assumed  the  financial  liabilities  of  a 
partner,  and  without  money  he  could  not  secure 
that  which  was  dearer  to  him  than  gold:  the 
reward  of  his  conscience  and  the  respect  of 
his  countrymen.  If  we  could  look  behind  the 
hard  working  days  of  the  majority  of  American 
men,  who  spare  themselves  not  at  all,  beating 
their  way  through  many  a  drudging  day  and 
working  night,  we  would  find  at  the  bottom  of 
the  cup  of  sacrificing  toil  the  lees  of  successful 
ambition  in  their  particular  vocation.  Money! 
Yes,  enough  to  get  on  with  toward  their  goal  of 
"making  good,"  but  the  goal  is  to  do  something 
worth  while  doing,  worth  while  looking  at  and 
talking  about.  Success  is  their  king  of  in 
centive. 

Why  do  our  European  brothers  come  to 
America's  shores  one  million  strong  each  year? 
It  is  not  simply  for  the  better  wage  and  the 
higher  standard  of  living. 

Why  does  the  German  American  rush  to  the 
registrar's  ofHce  to  become  a  naturalized  Amer 
ican  citizen?  It  is  not  because  he  is  afraid 
of  bullet  or  shrapnel,  but  because  he  does  not 
wish  to  be  forced  to  return  to  a  country  that 
crushes  his  individuality,  that  makes  him  a 


What  is  an  American  29 

mere  cog  in  the  great  machinery  of  a  mon 
archical  government,  a  government  that  says: 
"Here  are  our  ideals  for  you,"  not  "What  are 
your  ideals  for  yourself?" 

He  wants  to  live  in  this  great  country  of 
opportunity  that  places  no  check  upon  effort 
or  achievement,  that  allows  a  man  to  dream 
dreams  and  see  visions  which,  if  worthy  of 
realization,  may  take  shape  before  his  very 
eyes.  He  wants  to  see  his  children  in  a  land 
that  fosters  growth  and  amidst  a  people  whose 
ideals  are  unhampered  by  the  customs  and  tra 
ditions  of  dead  years. 

The  casual  observer  would  say,  perhaps 
thoughtlessly,  that  America's  ideals  are  activ 
ity,  money,  and  success.  But  the  person  who 
looks  beneath  the  surface,  who  takes  time  to 
study  the  American  and  to  search  out  his  inner 
most  motive,  will  find  that  money  and  success 
even,  those  words  so  satirically  hurled  at  the 
American  as  being  the  summum  bonum  of  his 
existence,  are  but  the  strong  wings  upon  which 
he  mounts  to  greater  heights.  The  Republic 
itself,  with  its  serried  ranges  of  enlarging  pos 
sibilities  for  effort  and  merit,  with  its  ideals  of 
equality  and  equal  opportunity  for  man,  woman, 
and  child,  is  the  concrete  expression  of  that 


30  American  Ideals 

dream  of  freedom  to  work  that  slumbers  in  every 
man's  soul.  In  this  land  of  democracy  the 
American  uses  his  activity,  his  money,  his  suc 
cess,  and  his  power  as  means  to  make  his  dream 
come  true.  He  loves  his  land  because  he  feels 
that  he  is  a  part  of  it,  that  he  is  helping  to  make 
it.  It  has  given  him  not  only  the  things  for 
which  he  has  striven,  the  things  that  eye  can 
see  and  hand  can  touch,  the  creature  comforts, 
but  it  has  given  him  also  a  voice.  Other  coun 
tries  reward  effort  with  material  success,  but 
leave  the  worker  dumb,  an  unexpressed  atom  in 
the  nation's  life;  but  in  America  the  individual 
may  speak.  He  is  a  vital  force  in  the  making 
and  the  moulding  of  his  country's  destiny.  He 
is  building  a  house  in  which  his  children  and 
his  children's  children  may  live  in  the  enjoyment 
of  his  enterprise  and  in  the  opulence  of  his 
liberty. 

In  a  sense  the  American  is  an  arch  material 
ist,  but  his  materialism  is  like  a  cloud  in  a  dark 
day  behind  which  the  sun  of  idealism  is  always 
shining. 


CHAPTER  II 
UTILITARIAN  IDEALISTS 

To  me  men  are  what  they  are, 
They  wear  no  masks  with  me. 

RICHARD  MONCKTON  MILNES. 


CHAPTER  II 
UTILITARIAN  IDEALISTS 

"I  AM  a  democrat  and  a  dreamer,"  were  the 
words  with  which  I  recently  heard  one  of  our 
prominent  Americans  characterize  himself.  He 
was  the  head  of  a  large  and  influential  institu 
tion  closely  related  to  contemporary  life,  an 
institution  in  which  he  had  accomplished  a 
work  of  far-reaching  value  to  a  great  city.  His 
whole  career  had  been  surrounded  and  well-nigh 
submerged  by  a  myriad  of  details  worlds  re 
moved  from  the  land  of  dreams.  A  casual 
spectator  would  have  called  his  service  tre 
mendously  useful,  but  far  from  the  realm  of  the 
ideal.  Yet  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  this 
man  is  an  idealist — a  utilitarian  idealist. 

In  a  land  where  the  word  utility  is  ubiquitous, 
and  in  an  atmosphere  where  a  dreamer  is  sup 
posed  to  be  a  visionary,  the  union  of  the  two 
in  one  individual  would  seem  at  first  to  be  an 
irreconcilable  anachronism.  I  believe,  notwith 
standing,  that  the  idealism  of  the  twentieth- 

33 


34  American  Ideals 

century  American  is  a  very  real  thing,  and  that 
it  has  never  been  more  accurately  designated 
than  in  a  phrase  written  by  Prof.  John  R. 
Commons  in  an  article  contributed  to  the  Inter 
collegiate  Magazine  in  1909:  "Utilitarianism  is 
the  democracy  of  idealism." 

It  is  this  inexplicable  idealism  in  the  midst  of 
the  practical,  the  marriage  of  the  imagination 
with  modern  applied  science,  the  secularizing 
of  the  mind  and  the  human  spirit,  and  the  bring 
ing  out  of  dreams  into  the  light  of  a  democratic 
day,  that  distinguishes  present-day  America. 
No  other  country  by  location  or  tradition  has 
been  so  conducive  to  the  drawing  out  of  a  use 
ful  idealism,  or  to  making  the  mystic  and  the 
scholar  practical  and  serviceable  to  the  com 
munity.  The  vast  distribution  of  wealth,  the 
marvels  of  scientific  exploration  and  industry, 
surpassing  the  wonders  of  the  Egyptians,  the 
strain  of  the  Puritan,  all  set  in  an  atmosphere  of 
democratic  obligation  and  cooperation,  have 
furnished  an  alluring  and  an  enchanting  field 
for  the  development  of  a  quality  of  idealism 
heretofore  uncommon  among  men. 

This  tendency  uniting  ideals  with  practice 
and  bridging  the  gulf  between  dreams  and  ac 
tion  is  seen  in  a  hundred  ways,  and  it  is  far  more 


Utilitarian  Idealists  35 

general  than  is  usually  appreciated.  The  word 
spiritual,  for  example,  is  rapidly  losing  its  former 
pious  significance,  and  is  becoming  naturalized 
in  the  society  of  other  words  connected  with  the 
higher  nature  of  man  in  his  everyday  life. 
American  religion  must  not  simply  be  good,  it 
must  be  good  for  something.  We  are  not  so 
much  inclined  to  say  "The  Beautiful  and  the 
Good,"  but  with  Goethe,  "The  Beautiful  is  the 
Good."  The  scientist  for  a  time  seemed  to 
be  getting  the  best  of  the  humanist  and  the 
scholar,  but  there  are  abundant  evidences  at 
present  of  the  secularizing  of  all  education  and 
attaching  the  specialist  in  the  theories  of  eco 
nomics,  politics,  and  social  and  applied  science 
especially,  to  the  chariot  wheels  of  modern 
government,  modern  business,  and  modern  phi 
lanthropy. 

Indeed  the  shuttle  runs  back  and  forth  with 
remarkable  swiftness  and  ease  between  the  reaP 
and  the  ideal  worlds.  Ideals  in  the  loftiest 
reaches  of  democracy,  the  purification  of  polit 
ical  life,  both  in  the  nation  and  the  municipality,  A  \ 
are  becoming  regnant  without  the  reformers 
and  the  reformed  recognizing  them  as  ideals. 
They  often  masquerade  under  the  guise  of 
"good  government."  Ideals  of  regulation  in 


36  American  Ideals 

business  and  trade  and  the  inter-relation  of  vast 
corporate  concerns,  which  were  like  the  political 
party  platforms  before  election,  of  twenty-five 
years  ago  (counsels  of  perfection  to  be  edited  but 
not  executed),  have  in  these  days  come  so  near 
actualization  that  even  the  sins  of  the  fathers 
are  being  visited  upon  the  children  of  "big 
business."  When  the  laws  for  correction  and 
reform  of  abuses  in  trade  and  organized  occu 
pations  do  not  come  fast  enough,  we  form  com 
missions  to  investigate,  and  from  the  inexo 
rable  searchlights  of  these  latter  idealizing 
bodies  nothing  and  no  one  is  exempt,  from  the 
biggest  insurance  company  to  the  biggest  re 
vivalist,  and  what  the  investigators  miss  in 
details  of  depravity  the  newspapers  supply. 

These  utilitarian  ideals  are  in  fact  about  the 
most  common  and  prominent  things  amongst  us 
at  present.  As  they  sweep  the  ranks  of  society 
we  do  not  always  call  them  ideals.  As  a  na 
tion  we  abhor  the  trail  of  Pharisaism  and  the 
semblance  of  piety.  We  idealize  our  character 
under  the  head  of  "standards  of  conduct,"  01 
"respectability,"  but  it  is  fairly  safe  to  say  that 
there  is  no  place  on  God's  footstool  where 
moral  ideals  of  conduct  are  more  universally 
respected  or  where  the  absence  of  them  is  more 


Utilitarian  Idealists  37 

fatally  blighting  to  reputation  or  success  than 
in  the  United  States. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  in  the  person 
of  the  American  business  man,  practical,  level 
headed,  all  business,  that  this  current  of  the 
ideal  is  clearly,  often  most  clearly,  seen.  His  big- 
heartedness  is  often  in  proportion  to  his  blunt 
directness.  Get  a  bit  below  the  surface  and 
you  will  find  frequently  a  nature  steeped  in 
sentiment.  "We  do  two  things  exceedingly 
well,"  says  George  Barr  McCutcheon,  "we 
dream  and  we  perform."  At  the  call  of  distress, 
either  at  home  or  abroad,  his  purse-strings  are 
loosened  with  a  prodigality  that  marks  the 
fanatic.  In  his  business  office  he  may  be  as 
austere  as  the  statue  of  Memnon,  but  in  his 
home  or  in  company  of  his  friends  he  is  as  full 
of  idealistic  feeling  and  often  of  romanticism  as 
the  East  Indian  schoolboy. 

The  average  American  man  of  affairs,  as  soon 
as  he  gets  past  the  persiflage  of  group  conversa 
tion  to  his  heart-to-heart  talk  with  you  in  quiet, 
will  lead  you  to  the  little  holy  of  holies  of  his  own 
personal  ideals,  to  some  fine  worth-while  issue, 
without  which,  notwithstanding  his  dollars,  his 
buildings,  and  his  automobiles,  he  would  be  poor 
indeed. 


38  American  Ideals 

We  know  of  two  workers  in  the  commercial 
world  who  would  seem  to  the  chance  observer  to 
be  wrapt  up  in  business,  but  who  spend  their 
evenings  in  a  private  bookbindery  where  they 
have  gathered  some  of  the  fine  old  manuscripts 
of  the  literary  world,  many  of  them  collected 
through  repeated  trips  abroad.  In  the  midst 
of  these  they  spend  their  evenings,  actually 
making  with  their  own  hands  beautifully  em 
bossed  de  luxe  bindings  for  their  most  loved 
authors.  Do  you  think  that  they  will  talk  to 
you  of  stocks  and  bonds,  or  the  price  of  wheat 
and  steel,  when  they  are  free  to  let  themselves 
go  on  their  heart's  main  interest?  Not  for  a 
moment.  They  only  wait  to  get  to  the  thing 
that  has  captured  their  spiritual  satisfactions. 
I  have  seen  one  of  them  take  with  reverent 
hands  a  volume  of  Shelley  with  limp  green 
covers  which  has  cost  him  many  months  of 
evening  toil  in  the  bindery  near  his  home.  I 
have  seen  a  light  in  his  eyes  that  revealed  an 
other  man  than  the  one  I  had  known  in  the 
business  office.  It  was  the  real  man,  the  man 
of  an  ideal  world,  who  has  been  able  to  erect 
himself  above  himself  and  to  pour  into  this  thing 
of  beauty  and  imagination  the  very  soul  of  him, 
longing  for  expression,  and  only  waiting  for  the 


Utilitarian  Idealists  39 

time  when  his  bread-winning  hands  could  bring 
into  existence  that  in  which  his  spirit  delighted. 

Foreign  visitors  to  America  never  cease  to 
admire  the  vast  advertising  projects  of  American 
enterprise,  than  which  nothing  more  bold  and 
inventive  is  to  be  found  in  the  country  to-day. 
It  seems  at  first  a  sordid  thing  for  a  human 
being  to  spend  his  life  trying  to  invent  ingenious 
methods  for  drawing  public  attention  to  theNSj 
latest  brand  of  tobacco  or  to  the  superior  quali-  / 
ties  of  a  new  washing  powder.  Man  seems  to  / 
have  been  born  for  greater  things,  we  say.  We 
pity  his  humdrum  life,  but  we  have  seen  only 
one  side  of  it,  the  utilitarian  side.  The  man  is 
only  half  revealed  to  us  in  his  business.  Follow 
with  me  one  of  the  successful  advertising  men 
in  New  York  City  to  his  country  home,  toward 
which  his  heart  as  well  as  his  steps  turn  at  every 
possibility  of  release  from  business. 

You  enter  through  gates  which  are  a  Japanese 
torii,  like  those  rising  phantomlike  from  the 
waters  of  the  inland  sea  of  Japan,  facing  the 
sacred  island  of  Miyajima.  You  follow  a  wind 
ing  pathway  over  a  graceful  bridge,  which  is  a 
faithful  copy  of  the  Red  Bridge  at  Nikko.  You 
pass  ponds  filled  with  the  purple  blooms  of  the 
Japanese  lotus,  from  beneath  whose  spreading 


40  American  Ideals 

leaves  glimpses  are  caught  of  glancing  gold  fish. 
At  your  feet  spray  dashes  from  the  gray  rocks  in 
the  brook  as  the  water  goes  laughing  down  to 
the  waterfall  below,  and  on  the  cool  night  wind 
there  is  brought  to  you  the  faint  tinkle  of  bells, 
swaying  in  the  breeze  from  the  pointed  roofs  of 
the  pagoda  seen  dimly  in  the  distance,  where 
also  a  miniature  Fujiyama  looms  darkly  as  a 
background. 

There  are  gardens  filled  with  azaleas  and 
cherry  trees,  and  great  branches  of  lavender 
wisteria  hang  from  latticed  arbors.  Pine  trees 
are  sharply  silhouetted  against  the  horizon,  and 
Japanese  maples  show  the  delicate  color  of  their 
leaves  in  the  fading  glow  of  sunset.  Here  a 
large  stone  lantern  and  there  a  calm  bronze 
Buddha  speaks  of  peace.  We  enter  the  house 
with  its  quiet  courtyards,  its  curving  roofs, 
its  rounded  archways,  its  softly  shaded  windows, 
and  the  smell  of  tea  on  the  cozy  brazier  greets 
the  guest  as  graciously  as  does  the  soft-footed, 
smiling  Japanese  servant  who  meets  us  at  the 
door.  From  the  veranda  of  this  house  upon 
the  hillside  one  can  look  over  the  tiny  bridges 
that  cross  the  hurrying  streams;  he  can  see 
the  faint  outline  of  the  great  torii,  and  as  he 
watches  the  man  who  comes  to  the  stone  lantern 


Utilitarian  Idealists  41 

to  place  a  light  therein,  the  magic  land  of  Nippon 
seems  a  vivid  dream  before  his  enchanted  eyes. 

All  that  is  lacking  to  make  the  dream  a  reality 
are  the  graceful  little  women  in  gray  silken 
kimonos  with  obis  of  mauve  and  gold,  leading 
tiny  children  who  rival  the  birds  in  the  colors 
of  their  plumage,  their  faces  alight  with  laughter 
as  they  skip  along  in  their  lacquered  clogs. 

In  the  busy  advertising  offices  in  New  York 
there  is  little  or  no  suggestion  of  the  imagina 
tion  out  of  which  this  shining  bit  of  the  Sunrise 
Kingdom  has  been  reproduced;  but  to  those  who 
know  America  and  Americans,  it  is  but  one  of 
those  significant  hints  of  future  promise  and 
capacity  which  seem  to  say,  "We  Americans 
may  appear  to  the  casual  observer  only  busi 
ness  men,  with  the  dollar  mark  on  all  our  activ 
ities,  but  that  is  because  you  do  not  know  us. 
You  have  not  looked  into  the  soul  of  America, 
where  lies  concealed,  below  the  abrupt  and 
sometimes  crude  exterior,  the  love  for  beauty 
which  only  waits  to  reveal  itself! " 

Nor  is  American  idealism  always  disassociated 
from  the  setting  of  utility.  Henry  Ford,  for 
example,  has  led  the  automobile  makers  of  his 
country,  and  in  his  leadership  has  made  an 
enormous  fortune.  What  does  he  do?  He 


42  American  Ideals 

immediately  begins  to  think  of  ways  by  which 
he  can  utilize  that  fortune  in  the  realm  of  a 
generous  cooperation  with  his  employees.  He 
raises  the  wages  of  his  men  to  a  figure  almost 
unheard  of,  even  in  a  land  renowned  for  the  high 
prices  paid  to  skilled  labor.  He  dreams  that 
he  sees  every  workman  in  his  employ  with  a 
home  of  his  own,  his  own  bit  of  garden,  his 
flowers,  his  children  in  school  instead  of  in  the 
workshop.  He  makes  the  worker  who  was 
only  a  part  of  his  vast  machine  shop,  a  mere  cog 
in  the  wheel,  a  man.  The  whole  economic 
American  world  scoffed  at  first  at  the  dreams  of 
this  arch  utilitarian  idealist,  but  this  same 
world  is  rather  proud  of  Henry  Ford's  idealism. 
Its  pride  exists  in  the  fact  that  he  reveals  the 
dream  of  human  betterment  hidden  in  the  heart 
of  every  man. 

Another  striking  example  of  the  American 
utilitarian  idealist  is  afforded  in  the  career  of  the 
late  John  Pierpont  Morgan,  a  king  of  finance 
and  the  collector  par  excellence  of  the  world's 
treasures  of  art.  The  two  strains  of  the  prac 
tical  and  the  ideal  were  woven  together  so 
closely  that  even  the  man  who  was  courted 
alike  by  the  chancelleries  of  financial  Europe 
and  the  masters  of  the  world's  galleries  of  art 


Utilitarian  Idealists  43 

would  have  found  it  difficult  to  disentangle 
them.  What  crisis  of  the  American  common 
wealths  was  not  alleviated,  what  panic  of 
wealth  or  of  labor  was  not  calmed  in  the  past 
fifty  years  of  our  nation's  growth,  by  the  strong 
and  usually  unerring  business  judgment  and 
insight  of  this  man?  In  many  an  out-of-the- 
way  curio  shop  in  the  Orient,  and  even  in  the 
quaint  little  Japanese  house  on  the  mountain 
side  where  an  artist  of  the  old  Samurai  school 
still  carves  and  paints  serenely,  I  have  seen  the 
lover  of  artistry,  as  a  final  sign  of  his  discrimina 
tion,  bring  reverently  out  of  a  safe  hiding-place 
some  bit  of  choice  engraving  or  metal  work  with 
the  remark:  "I  am  keeping  this  for  Mr. 
Morgan!" 

There  are  perhaps  few  men  of  the  present 
generation  who  better  illustrate  the  peculiar 
quality  of  the  idealism  of  America  which  even 
in  business  sweeps  the  field  with  an  accuracy  of 
vision  that  embodies  more  than  intellect,  more 
than  scientific  knowledge,  more  than  reliance 
on  tradition,  than  did  this  remarkable  financier. 
It  is  a  different  thing  from  the  German  exact 
ness  in  the  realm  of  facts;  it  is  also  something 
other  than  the  British  "muddling  through." 
It  is  nearer  what  Bergson  would  call  intuition, 


44  American  Ideals 

which  he  claims  is  the  method  of  the  creative 
artist,  a  greater  force  than  the  logic  of  the  mind 
or  the  blind  leadership  of  instinct.  This  in- 
tuitiveness  of  the  American  is  the  centre  and 
secret  of  his  constructive  imagination,  it  is  the 
genius  of  pressing  straight  to  the  crucial  issue, 
regardless  of  the  custom  of  yesterday  or  the 
abstract  thinking  of  to-day.  It  is,  in  the  words 
f  Stanton  Coit,  "the  method  of  the  poets." 
It  sees  with  the  eyes  of  the  soul  as  well  as  with 
the  eyes  of  the  mind  and  the  teaching  of  the 
hand.  It  is  the  ardent  apostle  of  present  utility, 
all  the  utility  possible,  but  behind  the  useful 
there  is  a  fixed  star — that  star  is  idealism.  It  is 
the  ideal  that  makes  the  real  possible,  that 
makes  it  desirable,  that  gives  it  reasonableness. 
It  is  the  ideal  that  keeps  the  man  working,  it 
is  his  star  of  hope. 

This  vision  seen  in  and  through  his  work  is 
the  only  thing  that  makes  the  American's 
inveterate  toil  something  else  than  drudgery. 
Save  to  the  aged  clerk  with  his  silver  hair,  and 
those  destined  followers  in  the  race  of  life  whose 
duties  are  the  bars  of  habit,  work  in  America  is 
not  a  "squirrel's  wheel. "  The  English  Wesley 
once  said,  "I  can  plod."  The  American  says, 
"I  can  plod  if  I  can  see  something  ahead  to  plod 


Utilitarian  Idealists  45 

for."     In  this  country  of  vast  dreams  and  huge 
fulfilments    idleness    is   a   rusty  sword    in    the   \f 
soul,  but  work  that  has  no  point  to  it  turns  the   / 
iron    round,    and    is    even    more    excruciating.  ' 
The  resiliency  of  the  American  spirit  is  pro 
verbial.       It  is  born  of  hilltop  visions  of  work 
that   is   profitable   to   do,    endeavor   that   gets 
one  on.     Everything  must  be  charged  with  a 
more  or  less  useful  idealism.     A  business  man 
said  to  a  clergyman,  who  urged  him  to  join  his 
church,  "If  there  is  anything  I  can  do  that  will 
really  count,  I  will  come  in,  but  I  don't  want  to 
join  the  church  just  to  sit  around  and  sing." 
The  United  States  is  probably  the  most  dis 
tasteful    atmosphere   imaginable   for   the   man 
without  a  "job";  it  is  also  almost  a  prison  house 
to  the  man  who  feels  that  his  job  is  not  worth 
while.     It  is  this  intuitive  sense  that  he  has 
taken  hold  of  a  great  work  that  explains  much 
of  the  American's  enthusiasm  and  unquench 
able  buoyancy.     Dr.  Eliot  is  reported  to  have  i 
said  at  one  time  concerning  Mr.  Roosevelt,  that  1 
he  had  never  "grown  up."     Is  it  not,  however,  in  I 
his  ever-renewed  idealism,  in  the  pushing  power-^ 
of  undisillusioned  youth,  as  mighty  as  it  is  at 
times  mistaken,  in  that  resistless  energy  born 
of  new  and  unfulfilled  dreams  of  human  prog- 


46  American  Ideals 

ress,  that  our  ex-President  typifies  the  Ameri 
can  spirit?  Utilitarian  idealism  is  the  reign  of 
a  high  ideal  in  the  midst  of  useful  labor.  It  is 
doing  a  practical  thing  with  a  spiritual  motive. 

It  is  not  simply  in  the  realm  of  public  life 
and  business  that  this  new  type  of  idealism 
reveals  itself;  it  is  clearly  seen  in  modern  Ameri 
can  literature.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  our 
contemporary  writing  appears  as  it  did  to 
Carlyle  in  London — "madder  than  Bedlam. " 
In  spots  it  is  vapid  enough,  and  if  the  compari 
son  is  with  the  formal  models  of  certain  other 
centuries,  judged  by  those  models  at  least,  it 
will  be  weighed  in  the  balances  of  style  and 
cultural  perfection  only  to  be  found  wanting. 

It  is  in  its  departure  from  the  regular  English 
types  and  in  its  refusal  to  be  standardized  ac 
cording  to  any  traditional  copy  whatsoever,  that 
its  distinctive  character  exists.  While  no  ob- 
.  serving  and  thoughtful  person  would  presume 
to  take  the  ring  for  a  considerable  mass  of  our 
present-day  writing,  in  fiction  especially,  a 
literature  as  devoid  of  any  high  ideals  as  it  is 
raw  and  specious  and  unwholesome,  a  kind  of 
sophisticated  small  talk  that  arouses  on  the 
printed  page  the  same  unspeakable  weariness 
that  it  does  on  the  street  or  in  the  club;  yet  it  is 


Utilitarian  Idealists  47 

manifestly  unjust  to  fob  off  a  nation's  litera 
ture  with  a  pedantic  wave  of  the  hand  because 
it  has  its  stupid  moments.  This  particular 
type  of  quackery  in  letters  has  received  its 
meed  of  attention  at  the  hands  of  Mr.  Owen 
Wister  and  many  another,  and  usually  with 
quite  sufficient  vitriol  mixed  with  the  treatment. 
I  do  not  recall  any  literary  criticism  of  the  kind 
of  books  that  are  cheap  at  whatever  price  or  in 
whatever  best-selling  quantities  that  has  so 
completely  met  the  situation  without  waste  of 
words  as  the  "recommendation"  for  a  superficial 
book  given  to  an  agent  by  Abraham  Lincoln. 
After  Lincoln  had  politely  refused  to  buy  the 
book,  being  pressed  for  a  testimonial,  he  wrote 
the  following:  "Any  one  who  likes  this  kind  of 
a  book,  this  is  the  kind  of  book  he  would  like." 

The  consideration  of  our  literature,  as  it  grows 
naturally  out  of  our  civilization  in  the  United 
States,  is  equally  certain  to  be  disappointing  if 
we  begin  with  its  ostensibly  false  alarm  lit 
erature,  as  it  is  if  we  look  to  find  in  it  six 
teenth-century  figures  and  stilted  utterances  of 
Venetian  ladies  dressed  in  silks  and  panniers  and 
moving  in  graceful  minuets. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  can  look  at  our  books 
and  writing  as  belonging  peculiarly  to  new,  to 


48  American  Ideals 

growing  and  unfinished  institutions  of  a  nation 
of  utilitarian  idealists,  a  nation  where  canonical 
writing  is  no  passport  to  success  simply  because 
it  is  in  regulated  symmetry  to  another  century. 
We  can  see  the  present  literature,  like  many  an 
other  thing  American,  sailing  more  or  less  in  a 
chartless  sea,  where  the  only  landmark  is  the 
real  contemporary  life  all  about  us;  with  such 
point  of  view,  certain  things  become  clear  as 
daylight. 

From  such  vantage  point  we  see  American 
writing  struggling  consciously,  or  often  with  an 
intuitive  unawareness,  to  embody  vitally  the 
truth  and  the  insistent  sense  of  reality  of  our 
twentieth-century  life.  It  reveals,  even  in  its 
lower  levels,  the  new  sense  of  social  responsibil 
ity  and  also  the  growing  psychical  sensibility 
of  the  people.  Even  Winston  Churchill,  one  of 
our  modern  standard  fictionists,  has  abandoned 
in  his  last  two  novels  much  of  his  art,  or  what 
we  have  usually  considered  to  be  the  grooves 
of  the  uniform  traditional  plot,  to  go  reforming 
in  religion  and  public  morals.  The  books  of 
Mark  Twain,  which,  as  he  said  when  he  was 
alive,  sold  right  along  with  the  Bible,  are 
continuing  to  do  so  in  ever-renewed  editions. 
If  there  was  ever  an  American  writer  who 


Utilitarian  Idealists  49 

dressed  his  ideas  in  human  dress,  slashing  right 
and  left  at  every  phantom  of  unreality,  laughing 
with  himself  and  at  himself  on  one  page  and 
pointing  his  moral  on  the  next,  if  we  ever  had 
an  author  who  lighted  his  torch  of  idealism 
at  the  glowing  vital  flame  of  moving  vibrant 
democracy  as  we  know  it  and  feel  it  all  about 
us,  it  was  the  beloved  Clemens.  With  the 
semblance  of  Carlyle,  but  with  the  lighter 
smiling  American  touch  and  with  a  "genial 
precipitation,"  his  cry  was:  "Down  with  hollow 
conventions!  Down  with  historic  feudalism 
which  no  longer  concerns  us!  Down  with  medi 
eval,  aristocratic  airs!  Up  with  the  ideals  that 
lie  real  and  naked  at  the  heart  of  life!  Up  with 
the  human!  Up  with  the  natural!  Up  with  the 
idealism  of  Reality!"  Samuel  Clemens  was 
our  first  great  utilitarian  idealist  in  literature. 
Many  have  since  followed  in  his  train,  none  of 
them,  in  the  field  of  story  writing,  more  closely 
his  disciple  probably  than  was  O.  Henry,  who, 
like  Charles  Dickens,  wandered  about  the  city 
streets  to  find  his  characters,  painting  them  in 
their  working  clothes.  He  appealed  at  once  to 
the  humor  and  the  good-natured  disapprobation 
of  his  countrymen  for  the  "society"  folk,  be 
cause  their  activities  were  so  funny  in  their 


50  American  Ideals 

uselessness.  When  at  one  time,  O.  Henry, 
describing  the  society  aspirants  as  occupying 
the  front  seats  in  the  theatre,  said,  "They  were 
bathed  in  tears  and  they  were  dressed  for  it," 
he  showed  his  shining  lance  of  humor,  but  the 
hand  on  the  blade  was  subtle  as  it  was  silken 

\v     in  its  thrust  at  the  masquerade. 

v  In  the  poetry  as  in  the  prose  of  our  contem 
porary  writers  this  urgent  democratic  realism 
can  be  traced.  Nicholas  Vachel  Lindsay,  son 
of  a  country  doctor  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  in  a 
fine  democratic  voice  cries  that  poetry  is  not  to 
live  cloistered  and  on  the  hilltops,  but  to  come 
down  and  rejoice  the  hearts  of  common  men. 
With  the  hard-handed  simplicity  of  the  Middle 
West,  Mr.  Lindsay  joins  a  delicacy  and  an 
elfin,  whimsical  humor  that  takes  us  by  sur 
prise.  His  "Adventures  While  Preaching  the 
Gospel  of  Beauty"  rediscovers  the  capacity  of 
the  American  villager  for  enjoying  beauty  and 
his  willingness  to  accept  its  sway.  Beauty 
resides  by  every  man's  door-sill  and  hearth 
stone,  says  Lindsay.  Springfield,  Illinois,  is  as 
lovely  to  him  as  Oxford  or  Athens.  The  cynic 
may  ask  whether  this  homely  beauty  lover  has 

-A — been  to  Oxford  or  Athens;  but  whether  or  not, 
'    his  message  is  none  the  less  valuable  and  in- 


Utilitarian  Idealists  51 

tended  to  stir  the  heart  of  the  American.  As 
Stevenson  says,  "the  true  materialism  is  to  be 
ashamed  of  what  we  are.'*  He  has  what  Joyce 
Kilmer,  another  type  of  modern  and  effective 
everyday  poet,  calls  "literary  colloquialism," 
and  these  men  belong  to  the  soil.  They  bring 
home  the  muse  to  our  business  and  to  our 
bosoms.  The  fervor  of  their  democratic  vision 
is  all  to  the  good. 

When  Lindsay  pictures  heaven  with  the  court 
house  square  of  his  favorite  Illinois  towns,  he 
speaks  with  the  voice  of  the  true  poet,  as  does 
Kilmer  when  he  carries  us  on  the  midnight  train 
to  the  suburbs  of  New  Jersey. 

Another  Illinois  man,  Edgar  Lee  Masters, 
writes  the  "Spoon  River  Anthology,"  in  which 
a  village  cemetery  becomes  vocal.  The  joys 
(a  few)  and  the  sins  and  degradations  (a  great 
many)  of  Spoon  River  are  detailed  with  re 
lentless  truth  by  these  voices  from  undersod — a 
kind  of  post-mortem  on  a  whole  community. 
The  appeal  to  the  burlesque  sense  is  vivid;  and 
yet  some  of  the  little  sketches  (e.  g.,  that  of 
Anne  Rutledge,  Lincoln's  dead  sweetheart) 
are  full  of  beautiful  reality. 

Then  there  are  the  writers  of  "free  verse" — 
the  vers  librists  and  the  imagists  who  contend 


52  American  Ideals 

that  their  work  obeys  subtler  laws  of  rhythm 
and  measure,  and  is  in  no  wise  "free."  In  all 
these  productions  the  stuff  of  poetry  is  present — 
the  picture,  the  emotion,  the  atmosphere — vivid 
and  startling.  But  it  is  freakish  and  often  un 
digested,  lacking  the  musical  and  metrical 
polish  which  still  constitutes  the  externals  of 
poetry  to  the  vast  majority  of  us.  These 
ingenuous  and  colorful  eccentricities  are  a  part 
of  our  new  tendency  though  they  have  not 
captured  the  approbation  of  our  sober  critics. 

The  truer  spoor  of  our  present-day  literature 
lies  more  closely  along  the  trail  of  such  men  as 
Edwin  Markham  and  Robert  Frost  in  poetry; 
or  Booth  Tarkington  and  Walter  Prichard 
Eaton  in  fiction  and  essay.  Many  names  could 
be  enumerated  to  show  that  our  literary  earnest 
ness  is  growing  more  and  more  tinged  with 
sparkle  and  play  of  imagination.  Our  litera 
ture  to-day  reveals,  if  not  all  the  substance  of 
things  hoped  for,  at  any  rate  the  evidence  of 
many  things  not  seen.  The  excellence  of  our 
oldest  and  most  dignified  magazines  and  the 
fine  work  they  have  accomplished  in  moulding 
and  fixing  our  democratic  literary  ambitions 
and  ideals,  can  hardly  be  praised  highly  enough. 

Henry  Mills  Alden,  whose  lifetime  of  service 


Utilitarian  Idealists  53 

as  editor  of  Harper's  Magazine  lifts  him  above 
the  possibility  of  the  charge  of  ultra-radical 
opinion,  has  characterized  our  modern  litera 
ture  as  "vital  altruism,"  and  expressive  of  the 
sense  of  the  universal  kinship  with  life,  as  the 
ground  of  the  deepest  creative  charm.  "The 
general  tendency  of  the  fiction  of  our  day," 
writes  Mr.  Alden,  "on  whatever  level  it  may 
reach  the  popular  mind,  is  toward  reality.  The 
general  intelligence  is  ever  more  and  more 
responsive  to  the  catholic  and  sympathetic 
note  of  that  advanced  criticism  which,  while  it 
accepts  all  of  humanity  in  its  real  significance — 
the  past  as  well  as  the  present — yet  resolutely 
repudiates  all  formal  judgments  and  set  canons 
or  the  regulation  of  life  and  art,  and  all  prej 
udices  and  fixed  notions  which  rest  upon  tradi 
tion  or  upon  our  own  loose  thinking," 

In  other  worjjsr^we-^aye--x-rrew  literature  in 
America  because  we__  have -a  new  humanity. 
This  literature  accepts  life  on  its  own  terms  and 
is  not  perturbed  with  the  erudite  interests  of 
philosophy,  history,  or  treatments  upon  abstruse 
phenomena.  j^js^jJie^jgoj^^fLthe-  plain,  andL 
comrnon  lifeA  full  of  homeliness,  which—has 
mastered  our  modern  type  of  writing  and  given 
it 


54  American  Ideals 

This  attempt  at  the  disclosure  of  life  as  it  is 
in  its  naked  contemporaneousness,  is  not  un 
worthy  of  literary  workmanship.  It  is  superior 
to  mere  imitation  of  models  that  fitted  another 
age,  and  it  is  quite  as  likely  to  be  filled  with 
the  warmth  and  the  color  of  that  humanity  for 
which  it  paints.  Even  Stevenson,  with  his 
unwearied  attempts  at  a  style  that  was  more  or 
less  an  imitation  of  a  period  that  was  dying, 
is  explained  by  a  discerning  critic  as  having 
his  vogue  not  so  much  by  the  form  of  his  writ 
ing  as  through  the  matchless  charm  of  his 
personality  and  especially  his  letters,  which 
reveal  without  the  screen  of  literary  artisanship 
the  heart  and  soul  of  the  man. 

When  we  examine  the  books  that  succeed 
as  "best  sellers"  (which  it  is  said  the  women  of 
America,  who  only  have  sufficient  time  to  read 
novels,  peruse  and  talk  about  to  their  husbands), 
the  popular  trend  is  revealed  even  in  the  midst 
of  much  that  is  scarcely  worthy  of  the  name  of 
literature.  These  books,  without  pretence  and 
frequently  without  the  ability  to  express  in 
clear  phrase  or  in  what  Matthew  Arnold  called 
"the  whole  tissue"  of  their  work  the  ideas  that 
are  tumbling  over  themselves  in  the  minds  of  the 
alert  and-inv-eHtive-'WTirers",  do  not  aim 


Utilitarian  Idealists  55 

aboye_theworld,but  to  get  down  to  the  world, 
into  the  very  thick  of  life.  Thei_r_frequien 
simple  love  tales  or  narrations  of  melodramatic 
adventures  reflect  thernost  ordinary  details  and 
happenings  of  daily  Jife_  as  it  is  known  to  the 
masses.  They  are  almost  invariably  filled 
?nd  happy  endings,  knowing 


that  the  American  will  not  endure  being  tor- 
tured  jtQ__no  purpose.  There  is  hardly  a  touch 
of  the  historic  as  it  abounded  in  Scott,  who  at 
one  time  swept  so  strongly  the  popular  mind, 
especially  in  the  South.  The  length  of  Fielding 
and  Jane  Austin  is  tabooed  as  surely  as  are  their 
intricate  and  complicated  plots  and  character 
analysis.  To  be  sure  we  have  had  an  attempt 
in  recent  years  to  foist  upon  the  public  the 
sordid  discussion  of  the  sex  question  in  many  of 
its  varied  phases.  Sometimes  there  has  been 
the  avowed  attempt  to  teach  high  morality 
through  the  nauseating  depiction  of  immorality; 
sometimes  there  has  been  a  malignant  turn, 
with  scathing  and  often  unsupportable  allega 
tion  concerning  modern  abuses  and  corporate 
enterprises.  These  have  marked  only  a  transi 
tional  phase  in  the  swing  away  from  the  con 
ventional  writing  of  the  last  generation  to  the 
more  direct  and  moving  contemporary  style  of 


56  American  Ideals 

the  present.  It  has  already  become  unpopular 
as  the  issues  which  the  reforming  writers  bom 
barded  have  received  attention  at  the  hands  of 
public  opinion  and  the  nation's  laws. 

Although  this  new  type  of  literature  is  only 
in  its  springtime  in  America,  the  modern  es 
sayists  have  caught  its  spirit  and  the  power 
of  its  utilitarian  and  realistic  ideal.  This  es 
sayist  type  is  as  different  from  the  Emersonian 
or  classic  as  one  can  well  imagine.  It  is  less 
Jormal>_rnore jntjjnate,  nejghl>gj:jyLjmd  it_  talks 
as  folks  talk.  It  does  not  disregard  col 
loquial  ^xprelslons  that  convey  sometimes  fuller 
and  quicker  meaning  than  pages  of  round 
about  argument.  The  writers  of  these  essays, 
as  well  as  the  authors  of  the  descriptive  and 
factual  articles  in  the  magazines,  do  not  make 
one  feel  that  they  are  looking  at  the  procession 
as  it  goes  by  and  writing  about  it,  but  that  they 
are  parts  of  the  throng  itself,  caught  in  all  its 
multifold  implications,  and  inviting  one  to  join 
them  in  the  ranks.  The  very  titles  of  some  of 
these  essay  books  reveal  the  modern  drift — 
"Crowds,"  "What  Men  Live  By,"  "The  Joyful 
Road,"  "Personal  Efficiency5" — all  reflecting 
the  fact  that  through  the  many  channels  of 
literary  culture  the  Ameii£an__peopla^are_j3_ar- 


Utilitarian  Idealists  57 

interested    in    the 


which  they  may  reach  a  clearer  idea  of  the 
Qf_the_mdividual  in  the  world  of 


It  is  by  no  means  a  discouraging  fact 
in  this  connection  to  read  in  a  recent  report  of  the 
New  York  Public  Library  that  9,516,482  books 
were  taken  out  for  reading  in  the  past  twelve 
months,  and  1,267,879  readers  were  served  in 
the  adult  reading-rooms. 

The  alert  and  rapid  life  of  the  country  is  a 
reason  behind  these  new  demands  upon  its 
modern  literature.  It  is  the  age  of  the  "mo 
vies,"  the  era  of  the  "punch/' 

These  rapid  days  call  for  the  complete  novel 
in  one  serial  issue  of  the  monthly  magazine. 
One  magazine  publisher  is  quoted  as  saying: 
"Any  story  that  is  worth  printing  can  be  told 
in  three  thousand  words."  A  weekly  which 
claims  a  circulation  of  1,750,0x30  copies  holds 
before  itself  as  a  chief  aim  the  reflection  of  all 
things  human,  in  the  most  concrete,  definite 
tales,  never  allowing  the  writer  to  lose  the 
objective  thing  in  his  individual  subjective 
consciousness;  it  tries  to  place  its  weekly  speech 
before  the  public  in  language  that  the  average 
person  uses  himself  and  can  readily  understand 
without  undue  meditation.  The  dusty  com- 


58  American  Ideals 

placency  of  the  classics  and  what  is  known  as 
the  "high-brow"  type  of  literature  seems  to  be 
lacking  in  the  terse  and  moving  qualities  de 
manded  in  these  swift,  accomplishing,  utilitarian 
days. 

The  Americanos-passion  for  sensational  news 
is  a  j^j^jrfjlnsjre^ 
He  Hke^^_r^ad[^if^rjieople  accomplishing  great 


con^mporary^^hievementSy  of  Goethals 
ing  the  Panama  Canal,  of  Orville  Wright  with 
his  aeroplanes,  and  McAdoo  with  his  subways. 
Pictures  and  biographical  sketches  of  men  and 
women  who  are  doing  things  fill  the  pages  of 
magazines  and  Sunday  supplements.  Like  the 
Oriental,  the  American 


in  a  _figure_or_in_an  anecdote  more  readily  than 
in    a    principle. 


when  a  college  professor,  jsaicjj'ri  at  the  Knyg  pf 
Princeton  remembered  his  stones  and  forgot  his 
lectures.  Indeed,  from  one  point  of  vision, 
the  hew  literature  seems  like  a  kind  of  sub 
limated  journalism,  with  a  vitality  of  motive 
and  sympathy  and  spontaneous  communication 
all  its  own.  If  it  lacks  great  scope,  historical 
reserve,  and  universality  of  knowledge,  it  does 
not  lack  those  dynamic  forces  that  are  every 
where  in  the  air  of  contemporary  endeavor. 


Utilitarian  Idealists  59 

To  the  average  reader  at  least  this  kind  of  litera 
ture  seems  more  desirable  than  anaemic  memoirs 
and  false  chivalries  that  neither  "sting  men  into 
action  nor  goad  them  to  the  heights  of  noble 
passion.'* 

The^literature  of  the  present  must  be  con- 
ducive  of  qnirjc  apd  real  and  drnrrmtic  effect, 
of  humor  that  is  spontaneous  and  unstudied. 
The  American  wants  his  books  like  his  religion, 
unobstructed  by  the  mock  heroic  or  the  mock 
sublime.  He  finds  his  "garden  of  humanity" 
in^the^careers^  and  relationships  of  the_  plain_ 
people,  with  problejTT^similar-  to  his  o^n,  whose 
lives  frequently  are  as  human,  frail,  and  full  of 
longing  as  they  are  genuine  and  transparent. 

It  is  this  reflection  of  human  beings,  human 
action,  and  human  feeling  that  forms  the  true 
background  for  spiritual  freedom,  for  the  i 
ism  of  realism,  and  useful  objective,  which 
pervades  the  literature  of  the  American's  present 
day.  If  his  poetry  has  taken  the  form  of  im 
aginative  prose,  it  is  because  this  form  is  more 
readily  adjustable  to  the  ever-changing  moods 
and  tempers  of  his  everyday  life.  He  who 
would  be  great  in  our  contemporary  letters 
must  be  near  enough  to  life  tn  fppl  ***  nntnr.nl 
pulse  beat  and  the  breath  of  its  moving  spirit 


60  American  Ideals 

lie  must  notjive  in  a  worldly?  art.  He  must  be. 
anjciealist,  but  always  an  idealist  in  a_jgal 
world. 

^"Another  characteristic  of  this  idealism,  re 
vealed  not  only  in  literature  but  through  every 
vein  of  the  nation's  life,  is  the  American's  un 
failing  sense  of  humor — the  kind  of  humor  that 

\     Mr.  Alden  calls  "the  most  distinctive  quality 
\of  life — the  index  of  its  flexibility,  of  its  tender 
ness,  mercy,  and  forgiveness." 

|      I  The  Americans  are  reputed  to  be  the  most 
X    /humorous  people  in  the  world.     Their  humor 

(/rises  out  of  the  very  intensity  of  the  native 
mind,  and  is  made  wide  and  free  and  cosmopoli 
tan  by  the  constant  accessions  to  the  popula 
tion  from  many  diverse  lands.  It  sprays  bits 
of  sunshine  across  the  darkest  channels  in  the 
life  of  the  nation  and  the  individual.  Humor  in 
the  United  States  is  another  term  for  that  easy 
going  good-nature  and  geniality  which  covers, 
surrounds,  and  pervades  the  entire  world  of  work 
and  play,  and  takes  the  lines  out  of  the  serious 
ness  and  rigidness  of  its  incessant  activity.  The 
type  of  humor  is  big  like  the  western  moun 
tains,  and  as  liberty  loving  and  free  as  the 
western  plains. 

The  very  size  of  the  country  seems  to  make 


Utilitarian  Idealists  6l 

expansive  the  native  intellect  and  lead  it  into 
that  comical  exaggeration  which  is  one  of 
the  essential  features  of  our  broad  and  not  too 
subtle  humor.  The  universality  of  this  laugh 
ing  sense  is  always  remarked  by  foreigners. 
It  is  found  everywhere,  in  the  cabin  as  in  the 
palace,  and  the  man  who  has  a  sense  of  humor 
is  always  an  acceptable  companion.  Many 
a  man  has  become  famous  and  beloved  in 
America  from  no  other  reason  than  that  he 
made  people  laugh.  The  names  of  Artemus 
Ward,  Bret  Harte,  Bill  Nye,  Nast,  Mark  Twain, 
and  "Josh  Billings,"  are  household  words,  while 
the  present  generation  is  as  familiar  with  Peter 
Dunne  and  his  Mr.  Dooley  as  with  David 
Harum,  and  with  Bunny  of  the  movies,  and 
a  host  of  comic  cartoon  heroes  of  the  newspapers. 
It  is  the  kindliness  of  the  nation's  humor  that 
is  perhaps  most  striking.  It  is  not  what  Alfonse 
Karr  defined  as  "reason  armed,"  the  kind  that 
raises  a  laugh  but  leaves  a  sting  behind  it;  it  is 
more  usually  the  variety  that  does  not  wound, 
but  rather  sees  the  incongruous  in  one's  self 
and  in  others,  and  is  as  genial  and  good-tempered 
as  the  native  heart.  Indeed,  it  is  not  altogether 
separated  from  the  tearful  emotion,  and  often 
reminds  us  of  Byron's  definition  of  humor,  "a  \L 


62  American  Ideals 

pendulum  betwixt  a  smile  and  a  tear/'  It  is 
used  alike  by  the  serious  and  the  frivolous. 
Those  who  used  to  sit  under  the  evangelism  of 
D.  L.  Moody  recall  the  way  in  which  they  were 
convulsed  with  laughter  in  one  moment,  and 
the  next  would  feel  on  their  cheek  something 
suspiciously  like  a  tear.  Carlyle  once  said  that 
f  the  essence  of  humor  was  sensibility,  warm, 

.     /^tender,  fellow  feeling  with  all  forms  of  existence. 

*"     This  fits  the  American  variety. 

One  does  not  look  for  a  humor  that  could  be 
defined  exactly  as  wit,  unless  it  happens  to  be 
exhibited  through  the  Irish-American  stock  with 
which  we  are  graciously  blessed.  It  may  not 
reach  the  highest  grades  of  humor,  "wisdom  at 
play,"  which  is  often  labored  and  creaking  in  the 
wheels.  The  variety  found  in  Hosea  Bigelow, 
the  Knickerbocker  History  of  New  York,  the 
stories,  the  essays,  and  trenchant  criticisms  of 
Messrs.  Clemens,  Lowell,  and  Holmes,  flows 
spontaneously  from  a  good  sound  heart  as  free 
and  unrestrained  as  nature  herself. 

The  entire  literature  of  the  United  States  is 
pervaded  with  this  humorous  atmosphere,  not 
in  epigrams  simply,  or  in  terse,  easily  quoted 
paragraphs;  it  is  in  the  whole  tissue,  and  seen 
no  more  generally  in  the  older  essay  writers  than 


Utilitarian  Idealists  63 

in  the  newer  schools  represented  by  Howells, 
Crothers,  Van  Dyke,  Agnes  Repplier,  and  Simeon 
Strunsky.  The  attempt  to  exhibit  it  to  stran 
gers  would  be  difficult  and  not  unlike  the  effort 
of  the  old  philosopher  who  carried  about  with 
him  a  brick  as  a  specimen  of  the  house  he  wished 
to  sell.  American  humor  has  saved  many  an 
insipid  novel  from  death  at  birth.  It  has  made 
much  ordinary  writing  palatable  by  its  accept 
able  condiment,  while  the  labored  and  frequently 
incongruous  humor  of  more  sedate  writers,  the 
kind  that  "smells  of  the  lamp,"  is  for  that  very 
reason  too  cumbrous  and  forced,  and  fails  to 
carry  the  crowd  with  it. 

This  penchant  for  humor  has  been  largely 
responsible  for  the  after-dinner  speech  in  which 
the  Yankee  is  renowned  the  world  over.  There 
are  usually  a  full  score  of  men  in  the  country, 
types  suggested  by  Messrs.  Choate  and  Depew, 
whose  presence  always  assures  a  successful 
public  dinner.  To  the  American,  as  Charles 
Lamb  once  said,  "jokes  come  in  with  the  can 
dle,"  and  you  can  easily  get  attendance  at  a 
dinner  when  a  good  list  of  humorous  after-din 
ner  speeches  is  announced.  In  spite  of  the  fact, 
as  Wendell  Phillips  once  declared,  that  there 
were  never  more  than  twenty-five  original  good 


64  American  Ideals 

stones,  the  American  shows  marvellous  ingenu 
ity  in  the  elaboration  of  this  original  supply, 
and  when  these  give  out,  he  tells  stories  on 
himself,  and  on  the  toast  master,  and  on  his 
mother-in-law,  which  subjects  are  always  sure 
to  make  a  hit  in  risibilities. 

Much  of  the  humor  clusters  about  the  big 
ness  of  the  land  and  the  native  satisfaction  in  it, 
and  in  essence  it  turns  upon  the  idea  of  reality 
and  utility  quite  as  much  as  does  the  modern 
literature. 

I  was  riding  some  years  since  from  Long 
Beach  to  Los  Angeles,  when  about  midway  I 
discovered  a  new  schoolhouse,  which  was  be 
ing  built,  quite  by  itself,  in  a  big  unoccupied 
field,  at  least  a  mile  from  any  dwelling.  I  asked 
the  native  driver  why  they  built  that  school- 
house  so  far  away  from  town,  at  which  the  man 
replied,  "Well,  you  see,  the  last  time  we  built  a 
schoolhouse,  we  put  it  on  the  edge  of  the  settle 
ment,  and  before  we  got  it  done  the  town  had 
grown  up  to  it  and  passed  it.  This  time  we 
wanted  to  be  sure  to  keep  ahead  of  the  town  for  a 
year  at  least." 

The  story  of  the  old  Maine  farmer,  told  by 
his  fellow  townsmen,  is  indicative  of  the  humor 
aroused  in  an  active  people  by  the  unique  and 


Utilitarian  Idealists  65 

useless  specimen  of  humanity  who  does  not 
work.  The  old  countryman  who  spent  his 
time  around  the  stove  in  the  grocery  store  was 
asked  his  occupation,  he  replied:  "I  jest  set  and 
think — and  sometimes  I  jest  set." 

The  humor  of  ancestral  glory  is  brought  out 
and  laughed  over  in  such  stories  as  that  of  the 
old  American  family,  one  of  whose  progenitors 
is  represented  in  a  picture  portrayed  as  going 
into  Noah's  ark  with  the  archives  of  his  famous 
house  under  his  arm.  The  pride  of  family  is  a 
never-failing  source  of  amusement  to  the  Amer 
ican  whose  dreams  are  always  in  front  of  him 
rather  than  behind  him,  and  who  fastens  his 
aspirations  to  the  achievements  he  himself  ex 
pects  to  accomplish  in  the  future,  rather  than 
to  the  things  his  ancestors  may  have  done  in  the 
past. 

Exaggeration  in  extremis  is  also  generally 
popular  in  American  humor.  It  is  another 
indication  of  the  excessive  ambition  of  the  peo 
ple  toward  magnitude.  Baron  Munchausen 
would  have  been  most  acceptable  in  America. 
A  man  whose  imagination  can  carry  him  far 
enough  in  humorous  unveracity  of  the  type 
displayed  by  Mark  Twain  in  many  of  his  west 
ern  stories,  is  always  a  captivating  entertainer. 


66  American  Ideals 

/  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  American  pos 
sesses  serious  ideals  and  has  the  moral  strain 
only  a  bit  below  the  surface,  he  is  the  last  man 
to  take  himself  seriously  or  to  allow  his  fellows 
to  become  over-serious  or  dogmatic.  It  is  one 
of  the  saving  traits  in  this  country  that  the 
entire  nation  laughs  easily  and  must  of  neces 
sity  see  the  small  and  funny  things  in  the  most 
unforeseen  places,  mixing  gayety  with  almost 
every  phase  of  its  complex  life. 

The  nation's  humor  at  times  goes  much 
farther  than  its  creator  intended,  and  becomes 
a  means  of  caricaturing  in  a  somewhat  dispro 
portionate  way  the  object  of  its  fun;  examples 
in  point  being  the  nation-wide  quips  at  Mr. 
Bryan  and  Josephus  Daniels  for  their  grape- 
juice  theories,  and  the  nation's  laugh,  so  difficult 
to  be  forgotten,  connected  with  a  comparatively 
trivial  incident  of  a  few  over-exuberant  women 
showering  their  kisses  upon  a  national  hero. 
Mr.  Bryan's  peace  efforts  are  pictured  humor 
ously  by  a  cartoonist,  who  draws  the  ex- 
Secretary  of  State  with  a  number  of  dove's  eggs 
resting  in  the  curls  of  his  hair — while  the  dove 
disports  herself  in  the  background. 
\  American  humor  is  closely  associated  with 
\  Arppriran  idealism  through  its  intuition,  its  spon- 


i 


Utilitarian  Idealists  67 

taneity,  and  its  indispensable  service.  It  brings 
back  the  nervous  intense  native  temperament 
into  correct  focus.  As  his  activity  in  gigantic 
machinations  reveals  his  intellect,  as  his  material 
successes  reveal  his  power  of  organization,  and 
his  books  reveal  his  desire  for  reality,  the 
American's  humor  uncovers  his  heart,  making 
the  nation  one  in  a  common  humanity,  knitting 
it  together  in  a  kinship  of  good  feeling,  and  keep 
ing  alive  the  sense  of  good  will. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  SQUARE  DEAL— BOTH  WAYS 

They  at  least  believed  in  the  words  which  made 
the  Declaration  immortal:  "All  men  are  created 
equal."  I  am  glad  to  remember,  too,  that  Lincoln, 
not  many  days  before  he  went  to  join  the  august 
assembly  of  just  men  made  perfect,  said  to  me,  "A 
man  who  denies  to  other  men  equality  of  rights  is 
hardly  worthy  of  freedom;  but  I  would  give  even 
to  him  all  the  rights  which  I  claim  for  myself." 

JOHN  HAY. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  SQUARE  DEAL— BOTH  WAYS 

"THE  leading  business  ideal ?"  The  manu 
facturer  slowly  repeated  my  question  after  me. 
He  had  just  returned  from  a  month  of  travel 
among  the  branches  of  the  firm  in  the  Middle 
West,  and  it  seemed  an  opportune  time  to  get 
from  him  a  comprehensive  answer.  He  placed 
his  cigar  on  the  corner  of  his  desk  and  his  eye 
followed  down  the  lofty  corridor  of  skyscrapers 
that  darkened  William  Street.  "In  a  word,  I 
should  say,  the  square  deal — both  ways." 

This  man  who  answered  my  question  was 
not  an  apostle  of  "big  business,"  he  was  not  a 
socialist,  he  was  not  a  dreamer.  He  was  a 
typical  business  man  of  moderate  means  and 
perhaps  somewhat  more  than  the  average 
thoughtfulness.  He  was  of  native  stock,  with 
out  hyphen  in  his  name  or  his  nature,  a  self- 
respecting  citizen  and  householder.  He  was  the 
kind  of  man  who  helps  to  form  the  great  national 
vertebrae  of  the  United  States. 


72  American  Ideals 

Was  this  popular  statement  of  democracy 
something  the  man  had  inherited?  Was  it  a 
part  of  that  more  or  less  loosely  arranged  senti 
ment  of  equality  that  floats  all  too  frequently 
in  the  atmosphere  of  the  country?  What  was 
behind  the  statement?  What  did  he  mean  by 
"the  square  deal?" 

The  gentlemen  of  eminence  who  in  the  eigh 
teenth  century  placed  their  signatures  to  that 
formidable  American  document  which  declares 
that  God  has  created  all  men  equal,  and  has 
also  endowed  them  with  certain  inalienable 
rights,  such  as  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness,  were  not  thereby  writing  history, 
but  rather  trying  to  designate  the  ideals  that 
were  and  would  be  of  the  new  Republic.  Some 
of  these  men  were  slave  owners,  some  were 
men  of  high  birth  and  gentlemanly  breeding, 
whose  financial  status  was  in  no  sense  on  a  par 
with  the  estate  of  those  whom  their  weighty 
legislations  were  to  rule.  They  were  not  think 
ing  just  then  of  making  over  their  chattels  into 
free  men,  neither  were  they  consciously  intend 
ing  to  divide  their  capital  with  the  less  indus 
trious  or  less  favored  early  colonists.  They 
were  not  meditating,  we  believe,  merely  the 
erection  of  a  wall  of  defence  against  the  prac- 


The  Square  Deal — Both  Ways  73 

tical  doctrines  of  traditional  English  superiority 
and  the  Divine  right  of  kings,  current  in  their 
English  motherland.  This  latter  object  un 
doubtedly  had  considerable  weight  in  both  the 
spirit  and  the  letter  of  that  document  created 
by  the  members  of  this  first  National  Congress, 
our  hereditary  political  doctrinaires;  but  there 
was  something  else  deeper  and  more  essentially 
vital  in  the  minds  of  these  forefathers. 

The  Constitution  which  was  then  born  was 
the  herald  of  a  new  ideal,  freshly,  daringly, 
racily  seized  and  embodied;  and  this  ideal  was 
rooted  and  had  already  grown  in  the  soil  of 
religious  conviction,  which  is  by  far  the  most 
desperately  tenacious  rootage  from  which  the 
ideas  of  men  may  spring.  It  was  the  sentiment 
of  the  square  deal  intuitively  grasped  by  men 
who  had  never  dreamed  of  an  industrial  civili 
zation  that  invented  the  popular  term.  It  was 
the  fair  play  and  equality  sentiment  which  is 
American  through  and  through. 

There  are  those  among  our  eminent  jurists 
of  the  present  day  whose  first-hand  experiences 
with  the  inequalities  of  the  law  have  seemed  at 
times  to  disillusion  them  as  to  the  consistency 
of  these  sentiments  with  the  conditions  and 
practices  of  our  twentieth-century  life.  One  of 


74  American  Ideals 

our  distinguished  lawyers  has  characterized 
the  Constitution  as  a  collection  of  "literary 
generalities,"  while  not  a  few  have  heard  with 
out  unfavorable  comment  the  stock  remark 
that  England  is  more  democratic  than  America, 
attributing  to  this  statement  the  meaning  that 
whatever  may  have  been  the  case  one  hundred 
years  ago,  we  are  now  deluding  ourselves  with 
aims  and  dreams  and  paper  sanctions  that  have 
no  corresponding  realities  in  modern  affairs. 
In  other  words,  we  have  lost  the  trail  leading 
back  to  these  early  ideals  of  real  equality  and 
freedom  for  all  men,  and  the  sooner  we  dispense 
with  the  simulacrum  of  our  alleged  freedom 
as  exemplified  in  this  eighteenth-century  polit 
ical  instrument,  the  better  for  our  good  sense 
and  sincerity. 

Racial  ideals,  however,  are  like  the  impressions 
of  childhood,  indelible,  and  inclined  to  become 
more  vivid  as  we  get  farther  along  the  road,  and 
feel  and  see  them  from  the  hilltop  of  life's 
maturer  trials  and  experiences.  The  modern 
Grecian  women  of  true  Hellenic  extraction  still 
break  their  urns  before  their  doors  at  a  Greek 
funeral,  even  as  in  those  distant  days  when 
Athens  sat  serene  and  queenly  upon  the  throne 
of  the  world.  The  young  westernized  Chinese, 


The  Square  Deal — Both  Ways  75 

in  their  Occidental  bowlers  and  frock  coats, 
still  return  in  April  to  their  parental  roof  tree 
to  do  honor  to  their  ancestors,  as  their  fathers 
did  six  thousand  years  before  them;  while  the 
native  Hindu,  modern  member  of  the  Viceroy's 
Council  in  India,  passes  from  his  Europeanizecl 
law  chamber  at  Delhi  with  traditional  ease  to 
the  banks  of  the  sacred  Mother  Ganges,  in 
whose  healing  flood  through  years  and  count 
less  eras  his  Hindu  sires  have  sought  to  lave 
away  their  earthly  pollution. 

Likewise  in  America,  while  we  have  changed 
marvellously  in  many  ways,  and  have  grown  to 
maturity  since  the  give-me-liberty-or-give-me- 
death  cry  of  our  forefathers  rang  through  the 
thirteen  sparsely  settled  states,  there  is  a  kind 
of  "old  home  week"  feeling  that  shivers  up  and 
down  the  Yankee's  spine  when  these  pristine 
"glittering  generalities"  of  "freedom  and  equal 
rights"  are  reexpressed  in  various  modern 
synonyms  like  "the  square  deal,"  or  the  "new 
freedom,"  or  "  the  rights  of  the  foreigner."  Even 
"women's  rights"  and  "votes  for  women"  do  not 
stagger  the  American  imagination  as  they  seem 
to  paralyze  the  British  soul.  "Rights"  at 
tached  to  anything  or  anybody  is  not  a  word 
to  frighten  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States. 


76  American  Ideals 

There  is,  moreover,  a  firm  belief  that  will  not 
down  that  these  early  catchwords  of  our  eman 
cipated  North  American  Commonwealth,  writ 
ten  literally  in  letters  of  blood  on  the  morning 
sky  of  our  early  revolutionary  day,  are  still 
shining,  and  indeed  have  always  been  shining 
through  these  one  hundred  and  thirty-nine 
years;  and  if  at  times  obscured  by  clouds  as 
thick  as  they  were  frightful,  there  are  those  who 
contend  that  it  has  needed  only  the  bursting  of 
the  storm  or  a  blaze  of  sun  to  bring  back  these 
letters  into  fresh  and  clear  vision.  The  very 
persistency  of  the  term  democracy  induces  one 
to  believe  that  despite  its  many  faults  and 
weaknesses  it  is  still  a  factor  to  be  conjured 
with  in  the  United  States. 

Dr.  H.  L.  Hastings,  in  his  lectures  against 
Robert  Ingersoll,  used  to  begin  somewhat  as 
follows:  "Mr.  Ingersoll  has  talked  and  written 
considerably  about  'The  Mistakes  of  Moses/ 
He  has  said  so  much  about  these  mistakes  that 
we  have  come  to  believe  that  a  man  whose 
mistakes  men  are  thinking  and  talking  about  at 
least  four  thousand  years  after  his  death,  must 
have  been  considerable  of  a  man."  With 
democracy,  likewise,  the  word  that  has  endured 
so  much  reproach  and  condemnation  at  the 


The  Square  Deal — Both  Ways  77 

hands  of  varied  constituencies,  the  pack-horse 
for  almost  everything  that  people  have  found 
disagreeable  and  unsuccessful  in  politics,  morals, 
and  manners,  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  it  has 
become  quite  accustomed  to  any  kind  of  an 
onslaught;  democracy  that  has  been  associated 
with  the  provincial  self-confidence  of  back 
woodsmen  and  Indians,  and  with  ideas  and 
customs  long  obsolete;  democracy  that  has 
been  called  merely  a  "conceit  of  singularity" 
and  a  descent  to  the  commonplace,  according 
to  all  historical  accounts  has  seen  a  good  number 
of  years,  even  before  we  began  to  talk  about 
it  and  dream  we  had  it  here  in  America.  We 
may  conclude  that  it,  like  Moses,  must  be  in 
herently  a  considerable  force. 

Mr.  James  Russell  Lowell,  many  years  ago, 
near  the  close  of  his  life,  said: 

I  have  grown  to  manhood  and  am  now  growing 
old  with  the  growth  of  this  system  of  government 
in  my  native  land,  have  watched  its  advances,  or 
what  some  would  call  its  encroachments,  gradual 
and  irresistible  as  those  of  a  glacier,  have  been  an 
ear  witness  to  the  forebodings  of  wise  and  good  and 
timid  men,  and  have  lived  to  see  these  forebodings 
belied  by  the  course  of  events,  which  is  apt  to  show 
itself  humorously  careless  of  the  reputation  of 
prophets. 


78  American  Ideals 

When  the  vials  of  wrath  are  all  emptied,  the 
citizen  of  these  commonwealths  is  still  a  demo 
crat,  and  it  is  still  his  suspicion,  even  when  he  has 
not  thought  about  it  very  deeply,  that  it  is  a 
kind  of  blood  heritage,  something  that  it  is  not 
much  use  to  fight,  since  it  is  so  deeply  and  in 
tuitively  imbedded  in  the  very  nature  of  his 
life  and  environment.  In  fact,  if  you  want  to 
see  this  Dame  Democracy  at  her  best,  you  only 
need  to  stir  her  up  a  bit;  then  she  is  quite  likely 
to  make  the  easy-going  American  show  his  fire, 
and  under  these  circumstances,  it  may  be  re 
marked,  he  is  probably  more  certain  to  think 
and  to  hit  straight  than  under  any  other  provoca 
tion.  It  is  this  democratic  idealism,  both  in 
politics  and  in  general  affairs,  that  seems  to  the 
American  to  be  good  and  sufficient  in  itself, 
"with  all  reason  in  it  but  no  reason  for  it."  It 
has  been  coming  out  recently  in  the  matter  of 
the  drink  problem.  The  question  is  not  de 
bated  as  to  whether  drink  is  a  menace  either  to 
the  individual  or  to  the  nation.  This  might 
be  quite  generally  admitted  by  both  drinkers 
and  non-drinkers.  The  question  of  earnest 
debate,  here  as  in  England,  which  will  always 
arise  when  this  matter  is  broached,  concerns 
the  right  of  the  state  or  the  nation  to  prohibit 


The  Square  Deal — Both  Ways  79 

an  individual  from  taking  a  drink  if  he  wishes 
to  do  so.  It  is  the  individual's  ideal  of  personal 
liberty  which  is  menaced,  and  this  is  one  of  the 
most  inviolate  sanctities  in  the  American  char 
acter. 

Russia  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  may  prohibit 
the  use  of  vodka,  but  President  Wilson  could  no 
more  accomplish  such  a  sweeping  change  than 
he  could  declare  war  against  England  if  the 
people  did  not  universally  want  it  or  demand  it. 
The  Russian  peasant  has  been  trained  by  gener 
ations  of  obedience  to  authority,  autocratic 
and  monarchical,  never  to  speak  his  mind,  to 
take  his  orders  superimposed;  consequently  he 
has  lost  much  of  his  ability  as  well  as  perhaps 
something  of  his  desire  for  individual  expression. 
He  does  not  know  what  freedom  of  speech  means, 
and  centuries  of  oppressive  silence  have  bred 
not  only  intellectual  inanition,  but  have  also 
taught  him  that  even  if  he  did  speak,  his  words 
would  be  powerless;  he  is  therefore  dumb. 

Not  so  the  American.  From  the  beginning  he 
has  been  a  moving,  living  unit  in  his  national 
life  and  progress.  Indeed  his  life  and  progress 
has  been  made  by  himself  and  his  neighbor  and 
by  none  other.  The  humblest  farmer  around 
the  stove  in  the  country  store  feels  his  sense  of 


8o  American  Ideals 

opportunity  and  privilege,  and  voices  boldly 
and  dogmatically  his  sentiments  regarding  the 
nation's  life,  discussing  at  length  all  phases  of  na 
tional  welfare,  from  the  doings  of  the  President 
in  the  White  House  down  to  the  acts  of  the  local 
constable  and  roadmaker.  He  knows,  further 
more,  that  he  counts,  that  his  vote  counts  on 
election  day,  and  it  would  be  a  foolhardy  poli 
tician  who  would  dare  to  insinuate  that  his 
views  were  better  kept  to  himself. 

It  happens,  therefore,  that  when  you  start  to 
tell  the  average  citizen  in  the  United  States  that 
his  fancied  "rights"  are  but  the  echo  of  his 
father's  sentiment,  a  hollow  hereditary  thing,  or 
at  best  they  are  only  what  a  particular  set  of 
men  who  rule  him  tell  him  they  can  be,  he  is 
quite  likely  to  stop  his  ranting  about  "privilege" 
and  "prohibition"  depriving  him  of  anything 
inalienable,  and  remark  about  his  constitutional 
liberty  principles  as  a  certain  Englishman  once 
spoke  of  the  British  Constitution,  "The  most 
wonderful  thing  about  it  is  that  it  works" 

We  are  inclined  to  surmise  that  it  works  for 
some  of  the  same  reasons,  for  it  must  be  recalled 
that  our  democracy  was  almost  as  much  English 
as  American  at  the  time  of  the  signing  of  that 
important  paper  in  Philadelphia,  that  "the 


The  Square  Deal — Both  Ways  8l 

acorn  from  which  it  sprang  was  ripened  on  the 
British  oak."  It  has  been  observed  that  while 
England  was  a  monarchy  with  democratic  tend 
encies,  the  United  States  is  a  democracy  with 
conservative  instincts. 

The  American  is  a  democrat  for  much  the 
same  reason  that  we  find  unrest  in  India  to-day, 
for  the  same  reason  that  we  saw  the  rather  im 
mature  Filipino  politician,  only  a  brief  timesince, 
watching  with  bated  breath  the  discussion  over 
the  Jones  bill.  It  is  because  all  over  the  world 
men  have  been  first  of  all  desirous  to  have  a 
hand  in  governing  themselves,  because  "dele 
gated"  powers  have  always  been  distasteful  to  I 
men  of  spirit  and  dreams,  and  because  in  a  de-  \ 
mocracy  there  is  the  inevitable  feeling  amongst 
men  that  they  can,  if  they  wish  to  bestir  them 
selves,  change  conditions  by  their  votes  as  well 
as  by  that  other  regnant  means  in  their  power, 
public  opinion,  so  that  the  modes  of  life  and 
work  environing  them  will  be  more  to  their 
liking 

That  there  will  be  always  and  everywhere 
unrest  in  democracies  and  that  there  will  be 
growing  pains  in  connection  with  all  young 
independent  activities  as  in  every  healthy 
youth,  goes  without  saying.  An  editor  of  one 


82  American  Ideals 

of  our  large  city  dailies,  writing  of  unrest  in 
Canada,  has  expressed  the  matter  well: 

Democracy  in  Canada,  as  in  all  the  sister  colonies 
and  in  Great  Britain — even  as  in  the  United  States — 
has  at  times  lost  its  job,  become  seedy,  gone  without 
its  regular  meals,  felt  the  gnawing  of  want,  the  sting 
of  poverty,  but  through  it  all  it  has  been  its  own 
master.  If  it  has  been  improvident,  wasteful,  ex 
travagant,  inefficient,  it  has  at  least  been  free  to  be 
all  of  these,  and  at  liberty  to  recover  from  them  in 
its  own  way.  It  has  not  been  a  tagged,  checked, 
numbered  thing;  even  when  hungry  and  down  at  the 
heel  and  out  at  the  elbow,  it  has  had  the  satisfaction 
of  knowing  that  it  was  itself  to  blame. 

It  is  one  of  the  firmly  grounded  principles 
here  in  the  United  States  that  the  right  of  the 
people  to  work  out  their  own  salvation  by  means 
of  a  somewhat  rigid  constitution  made  by  the 
people  themselves,  and  amended  to  suit  the 
changes  in  the  national  growth,  rather  than  by 
the  use  of  a  more  flexible  form  of  government 
manipulated  by  an  autocratic  hand  above  them, 
forms  one  of  the  peculiar  advantages  of  Ameri 
can  citizenship.  It  has  been  a  privilege  so  truly 
ingrained  with  years  of  checkered  experiences 
that  one  would  start  upon  an  almost  insuperable 
task,  who  would  try  to  substitute  the  "allow- 


The  Square  Deal — Both  Ways  83 

ance"  for  the  "wage"  in  this  country,  and  no 
conceded  values  of  immediacy  in  a  monarchy 
in  the  meeting  of  unexpected  exigencies  would 
for  a  moment  compensate  the  democratic  mind 
for  the  loss  of  his  individual  sense  of  participa 
tion.  The  very  grave  difficulties  attending  the 
construction  of  a  firm  representative  state,  the 
wrestling  with  the  knotty  problems,  and  the  need 
of  new  decisions  of  fresh  issues  by  an  equally 
responsible  electorate,  furnish  the  dust  upon 
which  the  nation  may  bite,  the  exercise  by  which 
its  faculties  are  aroused,  and  make  strong  appeal 
to  the  intense  love  of  the  native  mind  for  diffi 
culty  and  contest  with  the  unsubdued. 

It  is  in  the  aspiring  faith  and  in  the  ideal  of 
the  betterment  of  the  things  that  are,  which 
are  his  by  nature,  and  in  the  power  of  bringing 
the  impossible  into  reality  which  are  the  Amer 
ican's  by  material  experience,  that  lead  him  to 
believe  that  no  form  of  government  other  than 
a  democracy  can  afford  his  spirit  adequate 
scope.  That  he  has  not  reached  the  height  of 
his  democratic  ideal  of  equality,  either  in  laws 
or  in  the  life  of  business,  does  not  invalidate  the 
ideal  in  his  own  mind,  and  as  long  as  an  individ 
ual  or  a  nation  refuses  to  relinquish  its  ideal  and 
is  ready  to  fight  for  it  withal,  there  is  in  partial 


84  American  Ideals 

fulfilment  or  even  in  failure  something  for 
which  to  hope.  The  belief  of  the  average  citizen 
that  his  national  dreams  of  a  Republic  with  a 
"government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for 
the  people,"  will  come  true,  if  not  to-day  then 
to-morrow,  woven  into  perfectness  on  "the 
roaring  loom  of  Time,"  is  the  first  and  the 
indispensable  requirement,  without  which  any 
and  all  means  employed  would  be  but  the  break 
ing  of  idle  waves  upon  the  shore. 

It  is  not  only  the  presence  but  also  the  con 
temporary  encouraging  results  of  this  demo 
cratic  square-deal  principle,  as  we  see  it  slowly 
taking  shape  both  in  the  laws  and  in  the  arena  of 
daily  affairs,  that  bring  real  light  and  hope  to 
all  the  troubled  story  of  remedial  legislation  and 
labor  and  business  fears.  Despite  the  fact  that 
Utopian  democracy  is  still  painted  on  far-reced 
ing  horizons,  despite  the  selfishness  of  capital 
and  the  equal  selfishness  of  labor,  no  one,  we 
believe,  save  the  man  whose  vision  is  bent  by  a 
fatal  censoriousness  and  a  settled  pessimism, 
can  fail  to  note  the  advance  in  a  wide  area  of  our 
modern  activities  of  the  elements  of  cooperation 
and  integrity  belonging  to  a  high  and  ordered 
progress. 

There  has  been  a  gain  in  the  last  twenty  years 


The  Square  Deal — Both  Ways  85 

in  sympathetic  appreciation  of  the  other  man's 
point  of  view,  which  is  the  prime  necessity  of 
successful  republics.  It  is  more  common  to-day 
than  it  was  at  one  time  to  hear  men  saying  and 
acting  on  the  principle  laid  down  by  Theodore 
Parker,  who  said,  "Democracy  means  not  'I'm 
as  good  as  you  are/  but  '  you're  as  good  as  I 
am."  There  is  a  gain  in  straightforwardness 
and  frankness  in  business,  a  gain  that  has 
pressed  upstream  against  the  ever-swifter  cur 
rent  of  industrial  competition.  People  individ 
ually  and  collectively  are  becoming  increasingly 
convinced  that  as  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania 
said  not  long  ago,  "It  never  pays  to  be  smart, 
to  'put  one  over'  on  the  other  fellow." 

The  deal  that  involves  injustice  to  the  worker, 
whether  the  worker  be  a  child  in  a  mill  or  a 
skilled  artisan  in  a  machine  shop,  a  clerk  or  a 
toiler  in  a  ditch  or  on  a  farm,  is  becoming  more 
and  more  unpopular  and  impossible  in  the  fierce 
light  that  plays  upon  it  from  the  press  and  poli 
tics  as  well  as  from  protective  labor  organiza 
tion.  The  uncovering  of  questionable  practices 
in  insurance,  industry,  railroads,  and  statecraft 
have,  in  the  memory  even  of  our  youth,  aroused 
a  scrutiny  of  conduct  in  the  wide  world  of  our 
coeval  action  that  would  have  rejoiced  and 


86  American  Ideals 

gladdened  the  heart  of  a  statesman  no  farther 
removed  from  us  than  that  ardent  worker  for 
the  age  of  the  Golden  Rule  in  business  and  na 
tional  affairs — John  Hay.  More  honest  officials 
in  charge  of  our  money  and  our  ports  have 
been  demanded  since  his  day.  There  are  new 
schemes  for  the  relief  of  the  poor,  for  the  better 
ment  of  the  aged  by  pensions,  for  the  economy 
of  the  worker's  time  while  at  work  and  the  more 
profitable  use  of  his  leisure  in  his  hours  of  recrea 
tion,  for  arbitration  in  business  in  lieu  of  de 
structive  attacks,  and  in  diplomacy,  a  subject 
so  dear  to  the  heart  of  Mr.  Hay  and  to  which  his 
wise  counsels  and  foundations  paved  the  way. 

Even  a  short-memoried  man  will  recall  our 
democratic  advances  in  the  nation-wide  move 
ment  to  give  industrial  education  to  our  youth 
in  the  public  schools,  in  the  recent  enormous 
enlargement  of  free  libraries,  in  the  aroused 
attention  given  to  better  rural  conditions,  in 
endless  philanthropies  aimed  at  the  prevention 
or  cure  of  disease,  and  in  the  eugenic  and  hygi 
enic  laws  of  national  health. 

What  are  these  if  not  eloquent  expressions  of 
the  fact  that  the  cause  of  the  equal  chance  at 
life  and  happiness,  the  protection  of  the  weak 
and  the  training  of  the  strong,  the  sentiment  of 


The  Square  Deal — Both  Ways          87 

the  square  deal  in  intelligent  practice,  is  still  the 
light  to  our  path  and  the  inspirer  of  our  progress. 
They  are  the  most  potent  professions  of  the 
belief  that  the  universe  was  not  made  for  one 
man  or  one  set  of  men  alone,  and  that  we  as  a 
people  have  not  lost  sight  of  those  more  spacious 
frontiers  of  human  brotherhood  which  our  great 
est  men  have  always  kept  in  vision. 

Square-dealism  is  coming  to  mean  a  very  real 
thing  in  the  United  States,  something  far  more 
useful  and  practicable  than  a  lawyer's  glitter 
ing  generality.  To  the  college  boy  it  means 
that  clean  athletics  and  clean  scholarship  and 
clean  living  are  far  more  likely  to  bring  him 
recognition  and  honor  among  his  fellows  than 
their  opposites,  and  that  trickery  and  dissipation 
that  were  passed  off  as  cleverness  and  marks  of 
manliness  twenty-five  years  ago  now  stamp  him 
as  an  undesirable  in  college  and  load  him  with 
an  oppressing  heritage  for  a  start  in  life.  To 
the  congressman  sustained  by  a  rising  public 
opinion  in  morals  of  states,  the  square  deal  has 
meant  the  repeal  of  the  Panama  Canal  bill,  in 
the  interests  of  a  square  deal,  not  for  ourselves 
simply,  but  also  for  our  national  neighbors.  To 
the  modern  self-respecting  business  man  it  has 
meant  an  increasing  ambition  to  be  well  thought 


88  American  Ideals 

of  by  one's  business  associates,  to  gain  and  to 
hold  professional  standing,  and  to  maintain  one's 
self-respect  in  the  world  of  affairs.  To  the 
tradesman  it  signifies  the  reputation  for  just 
dealing,  to  give  for  a  dollar  a  dollar's  worth, 
and  the  growing  belief  that  to  make  a  customer 
is  better  than  to  make  a  sale. 

A  real  estate  man  put  the  matter  thus:  "Most 
men  desire  to  live  so  that  other  men  say,  'his 
word  is  as  good  as  his  bond.'  Most  of  the  men 
I  know  prefer  to  have  other  men  think  of  them 
as  good  rather  than  clever.  They  may  desire 
to  merit  both  of  these  qualifications  attributed 
to  them,  but  would  prefer  the  former." 

The  friends  of  the  late  Charles  Frohman  have 
stated,  with  justifiable  pride  in  their  associate, 
that  a  contract  was  never  necessary  between 
him  and  his  workers,  that  Frohman's  word  was 
sufficient.  Dr.  David  Starr  Jordan  has  well 
summarized  the  extensive  sweep  of  these  present- 
day  ideals,  individual  and  national,  when  he 
says  that  the  leading  men  of  the  country  are 
looking  to  see  our  public  life  as  clean,  wholesome, 
just,  and  true  as  the  best  private  life  can  be. 

As  the  wheels  of  progress  are  continually 
turning  out  new  situations  in  a  swiftly  moving 
civilization,  we  must  needs  be  careful  frequently 


The  Square  Deal— Both  Ways  89 

to  define  and  redefine  what  we  mean  by  this 
attractive  and  benevolent  sounding  term — 
equality.  Certain  of  the  gravest  dangers  of 
the  present  period  in  our  social  and  industrial 
world  hang  upon  the  right  understanding  of 
what  a  square  deal  really  signifies  for  men  as  for 
nations. 

Views  on  the  subject  vary  widely  and  stretch 
all  the  way  from  the  President's  theory  of  the 
"new  freedom"  to  the  hearsay  ideas  of  a 
certain  recently  landed  immigrant  who  was 
found  wiping  his  shoes  on  a  towel  in  an  East 
Side  hotel,  and  who,  being  reprimanded  for  this 
rather  generous  use  of  the  hotel  linen,  said  in  a 
tone  of  real  surprise,  "I  thought  the  government 
furnished  these  for  everybody." 

A  Harvard  professor  is  quoted  as  interpreting 
this  "born  free  and  equal"  clause  in  the  Con 
stitution  as  meaning  that  men  are  created  equal, 
not  that  they  must  remain  so — which  would 
seem  about  as  far  from  the  real  meaning  of  the 
original  instrument  declaring  our  liberties,  as 
the  immigrant's  impression  that  equality  and 
freedom  signified  that  any  man  could  take  and 
use  anything  he  found  handy.  Dr.  Van  Dyke 
expressed  the  spirit  of  our  national  equality 
more  clearly  when  he  said,  "  It  implies  that  what 


90  American  Ideals 

equality  exists  by  creation  ought  to  remain  by 
protection." 

In  other  words,  the  square  deal  in  America 
gives  every  man  an  equal  right  with  any  or  all 
competitors  to  enter  the  lists  for  the  great  prizes 
of  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  And 
it  carefully  watches  the  race  from  the  judges' 
stand  to  see  that  every  contestant  gets  a  fair 
chance  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  the  game. 
For  breaking  rules  the  penalties  are  supposed 
to  be  the  same  for  all;  for  winners  the  prizes 
are  sure,  regardless  of  the  particular  endowment, 
race  or  social  standard.  No  doors  are  barred 
in  any  direction  as  far  as  opportunity  is  con 
cerned,  the  only  condition  being  that  the  con 
testant  observe  the  laws  of  the  contest  that  he 
himself  helps  to  make,  and  prove  worthy  of  his 
steel.  One  of  our  chief  justices  has  avowed  that 
the  right  to  follow  any  of  the  common  occu 
pations  of  life  is  an  inalienable  right. 

The  mistake  of  reformers  in  various  coteries 
to  be  found  in  America  at  present,  equipped  with 
all  sorts  of  eccentric  Utopian  vagaries  and 
whims,  lies  frequently  in  the  attempt  to  make 
inequalities  of  capacity  and  service  equalities 
by  the  swift  stroke  of  a  law:  a  vain  attempt  at 
standardizing  possessions  without  standardizing 


The  Square  Deal — Both  Ways  91 

individuals.  It  is  juggling  with  effects  and  not 
taking  account  of  causes.  You  can  equalize 
rights  to  work  for  rewards,  but  you  cannot  i 
equalize  the  rewards  without  depriving  individ 
ualism  of  its  spring  and  virility.  A  square  deal 
means  a  square  chance  to  play  with  the  other 
players,  and  any  forced  attempt  by  laws  or 
society  to  make  the  prize  winner  divide  his 
profits  with  men  on  the  grand  stand  has  usually 
been  considered  in  the  United  States  in  the 
nature,  not  of  fair  play,  but  of  hold-up.  Hold 
ups  in  dark  streets  as  well  as  on  Wall  Street  do 
occur  in  America,  but  they  are  not  favored  by 
the  square-deal  sentiment,  and  there  is  further 
more  a  growing  tendency  to  make  life  disagree 
able  for  both  kinds  of  footpads.  In  brief,  the 
strain  of  the  square-deal  sentiment,  so  far  as  the 
law  is  concerned,  is  to  the  effect  that  the  Govern 
ment  will  invariably  protect  a  man  in  his  right 
of  an  equal  chance  with  his  fellows  to  live  and 
let  live. 

It  is  the  mixing  up  of  political  equality  with 
social  and  industrial  equality  that  causes  much 
of  our  misunderstanding  and  dangerous  differ 
ences.  Politically  the  square  deal  means  the 
chance  to  vote.  In  a  sense  equality  has  purely 
a  political  significance.  That  men  are  equal  in 


92  American  Ideals 

other  respects  is  plainly  false.  There  is  a  unity 
of  brotherhood  that  must  not  be  mixed  up  with 
an  equality  of  political  rights.  Equal  rights 
before  the  law,  the  rights  of  protection  of  life 
and  property,  are  involved  in  political  democ 
racy.  The  equal  right  to  work  and  succeed, 
t  if  one  can,  is  also  inherent  in  industrial  democ 
racy,  but  this  does  not  carry  with  it  the  right 
1  either  to  envy  or  to  snatch  away  another's  suc- 
•  cess.  The  artist  who  painted  the  picture  and 
experiences  of  Cain  and  Abel  reveals  the  start 
of  Cain  to  his  lower  destiny  at  the  moment  when 
he  became  an  enemy  to  his  brother's  success 
with  his  sacrifices,  his  flocks,  and  his  ability 
to  please  his  God.  It  was  not  only  the  sin 
of  covetousness  and  envy:  it  was  the  darker 
thought  that  made  the  lasting  mark  on  Cain,  the 
thought  "these  things  shall  not  be  my  brother's." 
There  is  a  distinct  personal  as  well  as  polit 
ical  side  to  equality  and  the  square  deal.  Suc 
cess  depends  not  simply  upon  having  a  chance 
to  assist  in  making  laws,  it  also  inheres  in  in 
dividualism'.  Business  bent,  sagacity,  common- 
sense,  the  absence  of  too  much  artistic  tempera 
ment,  and  the  ability  to  work  hard,  to  keep  sober 
and  save,  determine  eminence  in  the  business 
or  industrial  world.  A  man  can  be  a  rich  demo- 


The  Square  Deal — Both  Ways  93 

crat  or  a  poor  democrat,  and  both  may  be  good 
democrats.  Neither  riches  nor  poverty  are  dis 
graces  providing  you  have  the  ability  to  think 
clearly  and  to  discriminate  and  to  get  people's 
points  of  view.  All  the  square  deal  in  the 
world,  however,  cannot  make  lazy  and  worthless 
men  equal  with  active,  industrious,  and  good 
men.  These  inequalities  are  neither  social  nor 
political,  but  personal  and  abiding. 

The  necessity  of  distinguishing  carefully 
between  the  personal  right  of  the  individual  and 
the  national  right  of  the  Government  has  been 
brought  forcibly  to  our  attention  in  the  condi 
tions  in  which  we  find  ourselves  at  present 
relative  to  business.  The  very  ardor  with 
which  we  have  gone  reforming  and  renovating 
our  corporate  concerns  in  America  has  been 
inclined  to  revert  upon  the  people  in  a  shape 
very  much  resembling  a  boomerang.  Big  busi 
ness  has  been  investigated  so  much  for  and 
against  recently  that  we  find  ourselves  involved 
in  a  nation-wide  fear.  There  is  fear  on  the  part 
of  business  as  to  what  the  Government  is  going 
to  do,  and  a  corresponding  fear  on  the  part  of 
lawmakers  as  to  what  business  in  its  large  and 
complicated  capacity  is  going  to  do.  The  rail 
roads  are  afraid,  and  with  no  unjust  fear,  of  the 


94  American  Ideals 

Interstate  Commerce  Commission;  the  banks 
are  afraid  of  the  Federal  Reserve  Board  and 
the  Comptroller  of  Currency;  the  express  com 
panies  are  afraid  of  the  Postmaster  General; 
and  the  purveyors  of  food  products  show  signs 
of  fear  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture.  Now 
there  has  sprung  up  the  new  Trade  Commission, 
with  its  inspectors  and  investigators  going  far 
and  wide  into  the  details  of  industry,  and  it  is 
not  strange  that  our  industrial  establishments 
show  fear  of  such  agencies. 

As  a  consequence  of  these  fears  both  capital 
and  labor  suffer.  Business  is  timid  and  in 
vestors  sit  upon  their  money  bags.  Just  at 
present  labor  seems  to  be  having  its  innings,  and 
capital  is  suffering  for  its  former  abuses.  The 
president  of  one  of  our  large  life  insurance 
companies  has  thus  succinctly  summarized  the 
situation: 

Our  great  business  development  went  far  beyond 
the  comprehension  of  the  average  man.  This  gave 
the  demagogue  his  opportunity,  and  business  is  now 
being  punished,  not  alone  for  its  excesses — which 
were  many — but  for  its  successes,  which  were  great. 

The  remedy  for  this  weakness  of  our  democ 
racy  is  identical  with  that  which  may  be  ap- 


The  Square  Deal — Both  Ways          95 

plied  with  general  benefit  to  almost  any  phase 
of  our  national  troubled  life.  It  is,  in  the  words 
of  the  business  man,  the  square  deal  both  ways. 
It  is  the  return  to  the  simple  but  vital  means  of 
a  better  mutual  understanding.  Ex-President 
Taft  has  said  that  in  America  unless  all  are 
prosperous  no  one  is  prosperous.  The  remark 
is  a  significant  one  and  holds  much  of  truth, 
but  the  secret  of  prosperity  is  at  times  quite  as 
much  a  matter  of  sympathy  and  appreciation, 
born  of  knowledge  of  the  other  party's  situation, 
as  it  is  of  active  energy  and  indomitable  per 
severance.  Professor  Palmer  of  Harvard  once 
said  that  the  characteristic  of  a  true  teacher 
was  "an  aptitude  for  vicariousness,"  the  ability 
not  only  to  realize  another  man's  burden,  but 
also  the  willingness,  if  need  be,  to  help  him 
carry  it.  This  may  be  going  beyond  the  square 
deal,  even  the  square  deal  both  ways.  It  goes 
beyond  justice  to  fellowship,  beyond  business 
to  brotherhood,  but  is  it  not  in  the  light  of  such 
high-minded  idealism  as  this  that  our  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  saw  the  light?  Have  not 
the  greatest  blessings  of  democracy  been  pur 
chased  by  sacrifice,  even  the  sacrifice  of  one's 
own  rights  at  times,  in  order  to  truly  retain  them 
in  larger  and  richer  possession? 


CHAPTER  IV 
AMERICAN  VERSUS  ENGLISH  IDEALS 

A  foreign  country  is  a  point  of  comparison  where- 
from  to  judge  our  own. 

EMERSON. 


CHAPTER  IV 
AMERICAN  VERSUS  ENGLISH  IDEALS 

IT  WAS  nearly  thirty  years  ago  that  Matthew 
Arnold,  after  his  visit  to  America,  wrote  in  the 
"Nineteenth  Century,"  saying  that,  as  he 
viewed  them,  our  dangers  as  a  nation  are  "self- 
glorification  and  self-deception."  These  traits 
he  attributes  to  "the  predominance  of  the  com 
mon  and  ignoble,  born  of  the  predominance  of 
the  average  man."  The  search  of  the  English 
critic  for  the  "sense  of  elevation''  was  unsatis 
factory,  and  reveals  among  other  things  the 
difficulty  of  the  foreigner  to  get  at  the  real 
America. 

Lord  Haldane  gave  utterance  some  time  ago 
to  the  thought  that  the  great  danger  threaten 
ing  a  rupture  in  the  relations  between  Germany 
and  the  United  Kingdom  lay  in  the  fact  that 
owing  somewhat  to  a  common  origin  each 
nation  imagined  that  it  understood  the  other. 
The  present  lamentable  blunders  shown  before 
the  eyes  of  the  world  in  the  mistaking  of  mo- 

99 


loo  American  Ideals 

tives  and  ideals  of  peoples  closely  united  by  the 
ties  of  blood  and  marriage,  and  even  with  ad 
joining  territories,  lead  to  the  conviction  that 
there  is  something  inalienably  and  racially  in 
herent  in  the  warp  and  woof  of  every  people, 
which  in  a  sense  is  not  translatable,  especially 
to  a  foreigner:  something  which  even  the  native 
who  feels  it  intuitively  finds  it  most  difficult  to 
express. 

In  spite  of  the  cementing  ties  between  the 
English  and  the  American,  and  not  withstand 
ing  the  usual  talk  of  "motherland,"  these  two 
countries  are,  in  the  realm  of  national  char 
acteristics  and  ideals,  worlds  apart.  While  one 
senses  certain  truth  in  the  criticism  of  a  great 
English  critic  like  Arnold,  even  though  that  criti 
cism  is  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  old, 
there  is  yet  a  feeling  that  the  real  atmosphere  of 
America  has  escaped  him.  Americans  have  been 
well  supplied  with  books  written  by  our  cousins 
across  the  seas,  and  have  seen  themselves  as  the 
Britisher  sees  them  in  almost  every  type  of  inter 
pretation,  ranging  all  the  way  from  Thackeray 
and  Dickens  to  H.  G.  Wells  and  Arnold  Bennett. 
Yet  there  is  always,  even  in  the  most  tolerant 
advice-loving  Yankee  mind,  the  suspicion  that 
Americans  are  Americans  by  reason  of  the 


American  versus  English  Ideals        IGI 

innate  might  of  a  few  distinctive  principles  ger 
mane  to  the  nature  of  things  in  the  United 
States,  and  rooted,  as  one  might  say,  in  the 
subsoil  of  this  Western  land — principles  which 
are  loath  to  give  their  color  to  a  transient 
stranger. 

Still  it  is  with  England  that  our  interests 
and  ideals  are  more  nearly  identical  than  with 
any  other  nation,  and  it  is  to  England  that 
our  admiration  and  respect  have  gone  forth  in 
a  multitude  of  ways,  even  when  we  have  been 
unconscious  of  it,  or  perhaps  rather  too  proud 
to  admit  it.  Since,  furthermore,  we  were  all  Eng 
lishmen  in  the  beginning,  we  may  be  justified 
in  turning  to  a  brief  contrasting  study  of  the 
two  people  as  a  means  of  bringing  out  more 
clearly  certain  of  the  distinctive  traits  and 
ideals  of  the  inhabitants  of  "the  states." 

It  is  first  needful  to  remember  that  the  dis 
tinctions  here  are  traditionally  not  of  aristocra 
cies,  but  of  merit;  not  of  age  and  the  "sense  of 
elevation"  derived  from  the  contemplation  of 
either  majesties  or  monuments  (since  we  have 
none  of  these),  but  primarily  the  distinctions 
centring  in  men  and  their  work.  There  is,  more 
over,  comparatively  small  respect  in  America  for 
men  of  good  birth  but  of  bad  character  or  unem- 


IO2  American  Ideals 

ployed  talents.  Even  the  adornments  of  the 
artistic  connoisseur,  and  of  the  idle  or  "gentle 
man"  class,  find  here  in  this  land  of  plain  reality 
little  more  than  curiosity  and  that  kind  of  re 
spectful  attention  given  to  unusual  "specimens." 
The  crowds  may  line  the  sidewalks  in  front  of  a 
Fifth  Avenue  church  to  watch  the  wedding 
procession  of  a  scion  of  one  of  the  few  old 
families  of  wealth  still  left  to  us;  but  even  a 
casual  study  of  the  faces  and  a  slight  analysis 
of  the  remarks  of  the  spectators  will  reveal  the 
abysmal  difference  between  the  thoughts  called 
forth  by  this  spectacle  on  Fifth  Avenue  and 
those  seemingly  uppermost  in  the  minds  of  the 
London  watchers  of  nobility  on  Pall  Mall, 
or  at  the  marriage  of  the  son  of  a  duke  or 
an  eminent  representative  of  an  old  English 
house. 

A  chief  engineer,  on  the  other  hand,  return 
ing  from  his  notable  labors  in  connection  with 
the  building  of  the  Panama  Canal,  calls  forth 
a  crowd  as  diverse  in  character  as  it  is  serious 
and  respectful  in  attention,  and  the  man  of  deeds 
is  placed  upon  a  pedestal  of  honor  and  national 
regard  to  which  the  mere  inheritor  of  wealth 
or  an  old  family  name  can  never  hope  to 
aspire. 


American  versus  English  Ideals        103 

Through  reasons  more  or  less  evident  American 
ideals  gather  instinctively  about  people  like 
Edison,  of  whom  the  public  never  tires  of 
hearing.  They  like  to  read  how  he  spends  long, 
sleepless  nights  working  out  his  latest  electrical 
arrangement,  which  they  are  certain  will  open 
new  windows  into  a  more  usable  world.  The 
crowd  never  tires  of  reading  or  hearing  of  Lin 
coln,  whom  certain  European  writers  have  truth 
fully  said  was  without  "distinction"  and  who 
was  undoubtedly  at  times  ordinary,  even  per 
haps  vulgar,  both  in  the  speech  and  manners 
of  his  day.  But  Lincoln  visualized  that  which 
Americans  prize  higher  than  coronets  and  Nor 
man  blood — heart  quality — and  the  nation's 
ideals  and  reverence  cling  closely  about  his 
memory.  His  homely  wit  and  kindliness  ap 
pealed  to  their  love  of  real  things,  and  they  keep 
green  his  grave  with  a  sentiment  as  deep  as  it  is 
disregardful  of  the  lowliness  of  his  early  social 
station  and  possessions. 

This  is  not  far  from  the  innate  respect  felt  in 
the  souls  of  all  men  everywhere  for  great  hu 
manity,  and  in  this  type  of  elevated  regard  the 
dwellers  on  the  North  American  continent  are 
second  to  no  people  beneath  the  sun. 

We  would   not   minimize   the   need,   in   this 


IO4  American  Ideals 

country  of  magic  endeavor  and  enormous  raw 
material  of  both  heart  and  hand  (material  which 
has  not  yet  had  time  to  be  worked  into  artistic 
expression),  of  the  erection  upon  these  strong 
basic  traits  of  a  superstructure  of  gentlemanly 
manners  and  a  worship  of  beauty  in  all  its  forms. 
One  of  our  New  England  writers  has  pointed  out 
with  sagacity  that  it  is  a  good  thing  to  have  self- 
made  men,  but  for  constant  association  almost 
any  one  would  prefer  men  whom  civilization  of 
the  highest  order  has  had  a  part  in  forming. 
In  such  matters  the  American  may  look,  as  in 
deed  in  many  another  thing,  to  the  land  which 
gave  England  and  these  United  States  a  com 
mon  stock. 

To  come  to  a  more  detailed  and  concrete  com 
parison,  one  is  at  once  struck  at  the  amazing 
contrast  between  the  Englishman  and  American 
in  the  realm  of  feeling  and  expression.  The 
American  is  first  of  all  volubly  expressive,  while 
\  the  Englishman  is  studiedly  reserved.  The 
Britisher  is  a  kind  of  negationist;  he  is  almost 
stoically  repressive,  and  frequently  inarticulate. 
John  Galsworthy  has  said  that  there  is  no  more 
deceptive  person  than  the  Englishman  on  the 
face  of  the  globe,  his  deception  being  due  to  his 
inability  as  well  as  his  unwillingness  to  make 


American  versus  English  Ideals        105 

himself  understood.  The  American,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  enthusiastic,  fluent,  and  is  quite 
ready  usually  to  examine  and  to  expatiate  upon 
his  own  inner  feelings  as  well  as  to  make  a  guess 
at  those  of  other  people.  To  hide  his  feelings  is 
second  nature  to  the  Englishman.  Should  his 
emotions  by  some  unwary  chance  get  the  best 
of  him,  he  is  usually  ashamed  of  himself  and 
expects  to  be  laughed  at.  He  deprecates  any 
lapse  from  his  suppressed  idealism.  The  Amer 
ican  feels  that  some  of  this  is  parade,  what 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  called,  "A  winking, 
curled  and  oiled,  ultra-cultural-Oxford-don  sort 
of  affectation/'  and  discounts  it  accordingly. 

I  was  talking  with  a  young  man  over  the 
omnipresent  tea  urns  at  Oxford  regarding  these 
matters  of  English  and  American  traits,  when 
I  ventured  to  suggest  that  his  father  (a  promi 
nent  Englishman)  was  a  fitting  example  of  the 
Britisher  who  had  accomplished  much  work  and 
had  not  talked  much  about  it.  When  I  began 
to  speak  of  a  book  which  had  pictured  this  public 
man  with  his  accomplishments  in  South  Africa, 
the  son  waived  the  matter  aside  with  a  deprecat 
ing  gesture,saying,"Oh,thegovernor's  all  right/' 
and  suddenly  turned  the  conversation  to  the  last 
cricket  match  with  Cambridge. 


106  American  Ideals 

At  the  Oxford  Union,  that  miniature  English 
world,  where,  in  a  manner  strange  to  America, 
the  chief  members  of  Parliament  return  to  pre 
side  at  the  sessions,  helping  to  keep  inviolate 
the  English  traits  and  the  attitude  of  the  English 
mind  toward  public  service,  I  have  heard 
students  called  down  severely  for  giving  a  sug 
gestion  of  emotionalism  in  their  speeches.  In 
fact,  one  student,  who  in  our  American  judgment 
had  made  by  far  the  best  presentation  of  the  eve 
ning,  was  riddled  as  to  his  argument  and  his  side 
utterly  routed,  because  his  opponents  had  cred 
ited  to  him  an  attempt  to  play  on  the  feelings 
of  his  hearers  through  an  illustration  suggestive 
of  "spread  eagleism."  To  the  American, 
accustomed  to  the  public  mode  of  expression 
in  his  own  land,  this  show  of  feeling  would 
have  hardly  been  noticeable,  certainly  not  ob 
jectionable.  Another  student  demolished  his 
opponent  who  had  been  lured  into  sentiment 
by  saying:  "Sir,  Mr.  —  -  has  tried  to  wring 
our  hearts  I  submit,  Sir,  that  our  hearts  refuse 
to  be  wrung!" 

The  state  papers,  as  well  as  the  public  ad 
dresses  of  Englishmen,  while  on  a  high  level  of 
intellectual  reasoning,  and  exhibiting  frequently 
examples  of  choice  diction,  often  make  dry 


American  versus  English  Ideals        107 

reading  for  the  man  who  has  become  familiar 
with  the  American  type  of  political  presentation. 
An  American  politician  has  observed  that  the 
only  parallel  to  the  human  interest  found  in  the 
Congressional  records  filed  away  upon  the  dusty 
shelves  in  Washington  are  the  "popular" 
speeches  of  the  members  of  the  House  of  Com 
mons,  reported  in  full  in  the  dreary  columns  of 
the  London  Times. 

A  conservative  master  of  one  of  the  old  col 
leges  at  Cambridge  remarked  to  me  that  the 
principle  objection  he  found  to  Lloyd  George 
(who  was  at  the  time  delivering  speeches  in 
Wales  on  the  land  question)  was  that  he  re 
minded  him  of  his  namesake  Henry  George, 
whose  spellbinding  characteristics  were  as  unin 
telligible  as  they  were  distasteful  to  the  educated 
Englishman.  The  attitude  is  reflected  in  the 
statement  of  Francis  Gribble  concerning  Jowett, 
the  old  Master  of  Balliol,  a  man  "full  of  milk 
of  human  kindness,  but  profoundly  conscious 
that  milk  makes  a  mess  when  it  boils  over,  and 
firmly  resolved  to  prevent  that  catastrophe  by 
keeping  it  in  a  refrigerator." 

The  American  is  also  easily  moved  and  often 
he  is  easily  convinced.  It  may  be  added  that 
he  is  quite  as  readily  cooled  and  as  readily  un- 


io8  American  Ideals 

convinced.  His  across-the-seas  relative  is  hard 
to  be  convinced,  but  when  his  conviction  is 
formed  he  is  a  veritable  bulldog.  One  of  his 
countrymen  has  said  in  relation  to  his  attitude 
regarding  the  present  war  that  when  the  Eng 
lishman  finally  sees  and  seizes  a  thing,  he  takes 
it  with  the  whole  of  his  weight,  and  wastes  no 
breath  in  telling  you  he  has  taken  hold. 

The  American  is  friendly  and  long-suffering. 
He  does  not  grumble  over  trifles,  and  frequently 
is  justly  accused  of  being  indifferent  to  his 
rights,  while  the  Englishman  is  the  most  inveter 
ate  grumbler,  especially  over  little  things,  to 
be  found  extant,  and  withal  the  most  determined 
advocate  for  his  common  rights,  be  these  rights 
located  in  Liverpool,  Cairo,  Calcutta,  or  Hong 
kong. 

As  a  chance  traveller  the  Englishman  is  about 
as  companionable  as  a  stone  image  and  equally 
communicative.  His  impermeability  is  a  won 
der  of  perfectness.  A  Danish  gentleman  who 
had  lived  most  of  his  life  in  an  English  colony 
told  me  of  his  experience  in  crossing  Russia  on 
the  Siberian  railroad  from  Vladivostock  to  St. 
Petersburg,  a  journey  of  thirteen  days,  in  the 
same  compartment  with  an  Englishman.  Their 
conversation  during  the  entire  trip  consisted  in 


American  versus  English  Ideals        109 

saying  "Good  morning"  when  they  arose  and 
handing  each  other  the  daily  papers,  for  which 
each  one  politely  thanked  the  other  with  a  bow. 
Had  these  two  men  been  Americans,  at  the  end 
of  the  first  day  there  doubtless  would  have  been 
no  subject  in  all  the  range  between  politics, 
piety,  and  personalities,  that  would  not  have 
been  discussed  with  fervor  and  thoroughness. 
The  second  day  would  have  doubtless  been 
more  difficult  in  the  matter  of  conversation,  since 
they  would  have  told  everything  readily  acces 
sible  the  first  day,  but  for  the  American,  at  least, 
the  first  day's  conversation  would  have  paid  for 
the  trip,  and  not  to  have  expressed  himself 
would  have  made  the  journey  exquisite  boredom. 
As  a  tourist,  the  American  is  the  very  epit 
ome  of  good  nature,  geniality,  curiosity,  and 
agreeableness.  He  is  a  first-class  mixer,  talks 
easily,  laughs  easily,  and  his  bump  of  inquisi- 
tiveness,  together  with  his  temerity  in  unearth 
ing  the  unearthable,  has  made  him  the  arch  in- 
vestigator  of  the  world.  He  goes  in  where  angels 
fear  to  tread,  and  to  want  to  know  about  any 
thing  is  synonymous  with  finding  out.  When 
he  is  well  mannered  (and  it  must  be  remembered 
that  not  all  Americans  in  these  days  travel 
on  the  Cleveland  or  in  Cook  parties)  we  ven- 


no  American  Ideals 

ture  to  say,  even  at  the  risk  of  being  called  prej 
udiced,  no  world  traveller  of  any  nation  makes  a 
more  charming  and  obliging  comrade. 

In  this  relative  appraisement  of  the  globe 
trotting  class  one  must  remember  the  sources 
from  which  the  different  types  of  English  and 
Americans  come.  America  with  its  quick  results 
and  quick  money  has  foisted  into  the  world  of 
travel  thousands  of  people  whose  forebears  and 
antecedent  opportunities  for  culture  have  been 
far  removed  from  those  familiar  to  the  majority 
of  the  English  sightseers.  A  manufacturer  of 
machinery,  for  example,  in  the  Middle  West 
makes  an  unexpected  five  thousand  dollars,  and 
he  immediately  thinks  of  how  he  can  expend  it 
for  his  family.  An  early  thought  is  to  send  his 
kindly,  good-natured,  domestically  inclined  wife, 
with  her  little  troupe  of  pretty  daughters,  who  are 
striving  for  something  that  their  home  town  does 
not  afford,  to  Europe,  or  possibly  on  a  trip  around 
the  world.  They  take  with  them  their  freshness, 
their  vivacity,  their  overbounding  health  and 
optimism  and  joy  in  every  new  sight,  and  their 
training  which  has  been  of  the  sort  that  teaches 
them  to  give  full  vent  to  their  expressions  of 
wonder  or  disdain.  The  English  tourists,  mean 
while,  shrug  their  aristocratic  shoulders  and 


American  versus  English  Ideals        in 

exclaim:  "Those  horrid  Americans!"  It  is 
sometimes  forgotten  that  it  is  only  of  late 
years  that  the  people  of  the  same  strata  in 
England  have  been  either  capable  or  desirous 
of  extending  their  knowledge  or  of  gratifying 
their  curiosity  with  the  scenes  of  foreign  lands. 
The  average  middle-class  Englishman  is  con 
tent  with  his  home  and  fireside,  and  with  good 
safe  5  per  cent,  investments  on  his  money. 
These  are  more  tangible  and  satisfactory  assets 
in  his  eyes  than  the  investment  in  culture  for 
his  wife  and  family. 

Kindliness  and  humaneness,  the  common 
American  traits,  are  responsible  also  for  the 
way  in  which  the  sorrows  and  calamities  of  the 
world  cut  our  countrymen  to  the  quick.  His 
extremist  temperament  makes  the  American 
prodigal  and  sometimes  foolish  with  his  wealth, 
he  is  often  as  impulsive  as  he  is  excessive 
in  his  philanthropy.  Full  of  nervous  sensi 
bility,  he  wears  out  much  mental  and  physical 
energy  by  his  neighborliness.  The  Britisher 
in  contrast  is  seldom  excessive  and  goes  to  ex 
tremes  far  less  frequently.  This  makes  for  a 
certain  toughness  of  nervous  fibre  that  calls  in 
turn  for  fewer  sanitariums  in  England  than  in 
America;  this  insensibility  to  the  nerve-wrack- 


H2  American  Ideals 

ing  stress  and  strain  of  modern  competitive 
existence  has  caused  the  Englishman  to  be 
pointed  out  as  a  good  example  of  the  conserva 
tion  of  energy;  it  fits  him  peculiarly  for  a  war 
of  exhaustion  in  which  the  proverbial  ability 
to  "muddle  through"  and  take  things  as  they 
come  are  rare  talents.  This  trait  of  repression 
and  staying  at  home  in  his  own  feelings,  this 
inaptitude  for  sacrificial  interest  in  others, 
saves  energy  for  the  Englishman;  it  also  loses 
many  opportunities  for  being  human,  or  so  it 
appears  in  the  American's  eyes. 

In  the  matter  of  ready  adjustment  and 
adaptability,  the  American  easily  outstrips  his 
brother  of  English  race.  Given  the  same  ideals, 
the  Yankee  finds  many  more  means  with  which 
to  achieve  them,  since  he  has  fewer  binding 
restrictions  upon  his  working.  His  lack  of 
idee  fixe  and  freedom-confining  traditions 
leaves  him  free  to  move  more  easily  on  his  bear 
ings,  and  makes  it  possible  to  get  things  done 
with  promptness  and  often  while  the  English 
man  is  thinking  it  over.  The  American  likes 
taking  risks  and  is  a  ready  apostle  of  all  pro 
gressive  measures.  His  conservatism,  however, 
is  increasingly  noticeable  along  some  lines.  I 
was  talking  recently  with  the  editor  of  one  of 


American  versus  English  Ideals         113 

the  large  magazines  who  said  it  was  their  policy 
to  publish  virtually  nothing  having  to  do  with 
current  interests  in  any  part  of  the  world.  This 
is  quite  largely  an  acquired  trait,  and  conserv 
atism  is  naturally  of  slower  rootage  and  growth 
in  a  country  where  newness,  change,  and  ad 
vance  are  attendants  of  all  activities.  That  a 
thing  is  fresh  and  untried,  and  heretofore  un 
heard  of,  is  usually  an  attractive  recommenda 
tion,  when  to  the  more  cautious  Britisher  a 
new  thing  is  intended  to  arouse  hesitation,  if  not 
suspicion. 

A  prominent  English  writer  related  to  me 
recently  an  experience  which  befell  him  in  con 
nection  with  an  old  and  very  reliable  publish 
ing  house  in  London.  A  seemingly  attractive 
book  proposition,  involving  a  number  of  volumes 
relating  to  a  widely  popular  subject,  was  pre 
sented,  and  one  that  was  afterward  accepted 
with  avidity  and  much  success  by  an  American 
firm.  The  Londoner  called  in  a  member  of  his 
company  to  consider  with  him  the  scheme.  The 
method  of  consideration  consisted  of  looking 
over  a  dusty  pile  of  records  to  discover  whether 
the  house  had  ever  engaged  in  a  similar  publish 
ing  venture;  finding  that  it  had  not,  the  head 
of  the  establishment  immediately  and  without 


114  American  Ideals 

further  deliberation  as  to  the  particular  merits 
or  demerits  of  the  plan  before  him  rejected 
the  proposal,  saying  with  a  thoroughly  satisfied 
and  conclusive  air:  "No,  we  cannot  accept  it; 
we  have  never  undertaken  anything  like  that." 
Tradition  ruled,  and  contemporary  interest 
lost. 

A  New  York  publisher  was  next  approached, 
and  his  first  question,  according  to  the  narrator, 
was,  "Is  there  any  similar  set  of  books  in  exist 
ence?"  When  he  had  made  sure  that  the  idea 
was  a  new  one  and  after  he  had  consulted  with 
his  "men  on  the  road"  to  find  out  whether  they 
thought  it  would  appeal  to  the  latest  tendency  in 
current  demands,  he  said:  "This  looks  good  to 
us.  We  will  take  it.  We  believe  it  will  make  a 
hit  from  the  start,  since  it  is  a  new  angle  of  ap 
proach."  And  it  did,  though  in  England  it 
might  have  been  a  dismal  failure,  and  have 
justified  fully  the  hesitation  of  the  London 
publisher.  It  reveals  the  ever-ready  willingness 
of  the  American  to  take  a  chance  on  a  new 
thing.  This  same  unreadiness  to  change  from 
the  English  manner  of  doing  business  has  been 
the  reason  for  more  than  one  British  failure  in 
the  Far  East,  as  the  converse  trait  of  fitting  the 
product  to  the  customer  and  the  latest  require- 


American  versus  English  Ideals        115 

ment  of  the  public  has  spelled  success  for  the 
American  and  the  German  in  that  region. 

It  is  probably  au  fond  the  ideal  of  getting 
on,  the  aim  of  success  through  adaptation,  that 
is  felt  in  this  drift  away  from  any  final  or  ac 
cepted  way  of  doing  things.  The  middle-class 
Englishman,  constitutionally  solid  and  stolid, 
is  satisfied  and  quite  resigned  to  his  fate  of 
middle-class  existence,  taking  it  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  therefore  devoting  himself  to  the 
immediate  duties  before  him.  No  large  dreams 
or  future  ambitions  blur  his  eyes.  The  Amer 
ican,  on  the  contrary,  is  never  content  and  is 
always  seeing  himself  rising  out  of  present 
mediocrity  to  leadership  and  power  in  the 
class  of  business  men  or  stratum  of  society 
immediately  above  him.  The  Englishman, 
moreover,  is  inclined  to  take  his  business  as  a 
necessary  evil,  especially  the  Englishman  of  the 
upper  classes:  a  thing  to  be  gotten  over  as 
quickly  as  possible,  so  that  he  may  get  on  to 
something  else:  golf,  shooting,  or  politics,  for 
which  he  cares  infinitely  more  than  his  real 
work.  The  American  regards  his  business  as 
his  main  activity  in  life;  it  forms  often  his  di 
version  as  well  as  his  daily  task;  "he  is  all 
business"  is  an  expression  frequently  heard. 


n6  American  Ideals 

It  is  the  one  thing  for  which  he  delays  his 
pleasures  and  recreations  and  amusements  and 
travel,  it  is  the  altar  upon  which  he  too  often  y* 
immolates  matters  of  intellectual  and  cultural 
interests;  it  is  a  veritable  religion  to  many,  and 
no  man  of  any  other  nation,  not  even  the  shop- 
keeping  Chinese,  worships  more  loyally  or  un- 
intermittingly  the  captivating  gods  of  trade. 

It  is  because  of  his  devotion  to  business  that 
the  European  newspaper  artists  never  weary 
of  picturing  Uncle  Sam  as  a  pork  packer  mil 
lionaire  and  the  shrewd  Yankee  trader  with  the 
head  of  a  hog  and  the  octopus  body  of  a  trust 
magnate.  We  have  yet  to  find  a  company 
of  foreigners  either  abroad  or  at  home  who  fail, 
after  a  few  moves  of  the  conversation,  to  bring 
up  the  money  wraith  against  the  American. 
Without  doubt  we  have  here  a  subject  of  strik 
ing  interest  close  to  the  nation's  idealism  and 
fruitful  of  marked  comparison  with  English 
aims.  That  the  American  thinks  in  terms  of 
money,  and  that  wealth  bulks  large  in  his  esti 
mate  of  success,  no  one  closely  acquainted  with 
him  will  deny,  but  when  it  comes  to  a  compari 
son  in  the  matter  of  the  reason  for  acquiring 
dollars,  we  doubt  whether  he  will  be  found  more 
culpable  than  the  Englishman. 


American  versus  English  Ideals        117 

Certain  it  is  that  in  conversation  the  English 
man  has  been  reared  to  talk  of  other  things  than 
his  income.  He  has  been  trained  to  connect  the 
commercial  transaction  with  a  lower  order  of 
society  and  accomplishments  than  those  repre 
sented  by  the  persons  and  activities  connected 
with  public  life,  the  realm  of  letters,  and  especially 
the  careers  of  his  military  and  colonizing  country 
men  on  the  seas  or  in  distant  climes. 

This  contrast  between  the  inhabitants  of 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  was  brought 
out  humorously  by  an  experience  occurring  in 
one  of  my  trips  across  the  Yellow  Sea  with  a 
Scotchman  and  his  son  as  travelling  companions. 
The  subject  of  the  ever-present  thought  in  the 
minds  of  Americans  was  suggested  as  usual  by 
my  Scottish  friend,  and  with  some  ardor  of  con 
viction  I  was  endeavoring  to  show  him  that 
these  were  largely  incidental  accompaniments  in 
the  beginnings  of  the  construction  of  a  civiliza 
tion,  and  that  already  there  were  many  indica 
tions  of  exchanging  this  subject  of  wealth  for 
others  in  a  wide  circle  of  cultural  endeavor  in 
which  the  Americans  were  beginning  to  indulge 
themselves.  Things  were  going  along  fairly 
well,  when,  during  a  lull  in  the  conversation,  an 
unmistakably  Yankee  voice  cut  the  atmosphere 


n8  American  Ideals 

of  the  comparatively  small  dining-saloon  with 
the  remark,  "By  the  way,  what  do  you  have  to 
pay  for  a  porterhouse  steak  at  the  Holland 
House?"  The  Scotchman  looked  at  me  from 
quizzical  eyes,  and  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  this 
ended  my  argument  for  the  time  being. 

When  one  turns  to  the  mental  consciousness  of 
the  two  peoples,  and  this  consciousness  is  closely 
akin  to  the  spring  of  their  idealism,  one  finds 
sharply  outlined  a  few  distinguishing  features. 
In  the  United  States  it  is  easier  to  find  persons 
who  are  self-conscious  and  imaginative,  and  who 
include  the  past  and  the  future  as  well  as  the 
present  in  their  introspective  sense  of  themselves. 
,  Many  an  American  is  a  dreamer,  and  as  much  of 
\  a  failure  in  a  practical  way  as  is  the  speculative 
Easterner.  There  is  a  marked  sensitiveness 
when  it  comes  to  the  fear  of  public  opinion  in 
regard  to  his  fellows,  while  the  prevalence  and 
the  flourishing  success  of  almost  every  kind  of 
metaphysical  or  religious  sect  known  on  the  face 
of  the  earth  is  a  mark  of  his  unqualified  mental 
receptiveness. 

The  Englishman,  on  the  contrary,  however 

^ — "Ynucri  he  may  scout  the  idea  of  materiality  in  his 

}      patronizing  attitude  at  times  toward  his  New 

World  cousin,  dwells  in  the  realm  of  facts,  and 


American  versus  English  Ideals        119 

often  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  blind  practicality, 
even  more  than  does  the  American.  As  a  busi 
ness  man,  the  Englishman  is  "awfully  level 
headed"  and  gives  the  impression  to  many 
foreigners  of  a  distressing  matter-of-factness. 
His  religion  he  accepts  as  he  accepts  his  national 
consciousness,  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  one 
finds  abstract  discussions  of  religion  and  philos 
ophy  as  infrequent  and  usually  distasteful  inter 
lopers  in  the  ordinary  English  conversation. 
New  religions  and  anything  that  approximates 
to  fads  and  fancies  are  not  readily  received  in 
that  land  of  conservatism. 

To  the  adaptable  and  ideal-loving  American 
the  popular  sentiment  welcomes  change  so  rap 
idly  that  in  some  respects  it  is  open  to  the 
Frenchman's  retort  regarding  his  own  people: 
"I  put  no  faith  in  any  of  the  laws  of  literary 
history,  except  in  that  which  consists  in  saying 
that  a  fashion  succeeding  another  fails  if  it  is 
not  the  absolute  converse  of  that  which  preceded 
it."  The  solidity  and  imperturbability  of  the 
Englishman  in  contrast  is  often  as  unintelligible 
as  it  is  foreign  to  the  American  temperament. 

It  must  be  remembered,  especially  as  far  as 
the  leadership  of  English  thought  and  action  is 
concerned,  that  the  twenty  or  more  large  Eng- 


I2O  American  Ideals 

lish  public  schools,  which  have  no  counterpart 
on  earth,  and  which  train  at  least  one  hundred 
thousand  of  English  youth  of  each  generation, 
are  responsible  largely  for  this  uniformity  of 
mentality  and  this  mysteriously  cool,  critical, 
and  reserved  manner.  When  one  appreciates 
that  seven  eighths  of  the  important  positions, 
public,  professional,  administrative,  as  well  as 
an  increasingly  large  number  of  notable  posts  in 
England's  present-day  industrial  enterprises, 
are  held  by  the  graduates  of  schools  of  which 
Eton,  Harrow,  and  Rugby  have  been  for  genera 
tions  the  exacting  models,  there  is  found  at  least 
one  reason  for  the  English  mind.  Here  young 
England  learns  impartial  justice,  and  acquires 
the  knowledge  of  how  to  govern  others  as  well 
as  himself.  Here  the  orderliness  and  obedience 
to  law,  so  much  needed  in  the  United  States 
just  now,  becomes  second  nature  to  the  young 
Britisher.  These  schools  cultivate  the  negation 
of  self-consciousness,  and  are  more  or  less  in 
imical  to  that  type  of  individualism  which  the 
multitudinous  vocational  schools  of  America, 
with  their  emphasis  upon  individual  aptitude, 
magnify  and  develop. 

The  negative  philosophy  of  these  schools  of 
England,  whose  spirit  enters  so  largely  into  the 


American  versus  English  Ideals        121 

English  ideal,  has  been  humorously  satirized 
in  a  code  of  ten  commandments  of  the  English 
schoolboy,  by  a  French  writer  in  the  "Revue 
Politique  et  Parliamentaire": 

1.  There  is  only  one  God,  and  the  Captain  of 
football  is  his  Prophet. 

2.  My  school  is  the  best  school  in  the  world. 

3.  Without  big  muscles,  strong  will,  and  proper 
collars,  there  is  no  salvation. 

4.  I  must  wash  much,  and  in  accordance  with 
tradition. 

5.  I  must  speak  the  truth  even  to  a  master,  if  he 
believes  everything  I  tell  him. 

6.  I  must  play  games  with  all  my  heart,  with  all 
my  soul,  and  with  all  my  strength. 

7.  To  work  outside  class  hours  is  indecent. 

8.  Enthusiasm,  except  for  games,  is  in  bad  taste. 

9.  I  must  look  up  to  the  older  fellows,  and  pour 
contempt  on  newcomers. 

10.  I  must  show  no  emotion,  and  not  kiss  my 
mother  in  public. 

In  these  training  places  of  English  schoolboys 
there  is  as  little  attention  given  to  bothering 
about  one's  inner  state  of  consciousness  as  one 
can  imagine.  One  teacher  told  me  that  he  did 
not  want  his  boys  to  bother  about  their  souls, 
but  to  take  care  of  their  bodies  and  their  souls 


122  American  Ideals 

would  take  care  of  themselves.  As  a  conse 
quence  you  will  rarely  see  a  high  degree  of  moral 
or  mental  sensitiveness  on  the  part  of  these 
graduates.  They  do  not  brood,  neither  do  they 
take  undue  trouble  about  their  future  state. 
Neither  do  they  sit  up  nights  to  do  original 
thinking  relative  to  their  philosophy  of  life. 
They  simply  accept  the  traditional  forms  and  go 
steadily  along  in  the  paths  their  fathers  trod. 
Voluntary  religion  in  the  schools  and  colleges  is 
almost  unknown.  In  a  visit  to  a  wide  circle  of 
varying  types  of  English  institutions  recently  I 
found  virtually  no  student-initiated  classes  for 
Bible  study.  In  American  colleges  and  uni 
versities  there  are  in  striking  contrast  each  year 
no  less  than  40,000  students  studying  the  Bible, 
for  the  most  part  in  student-organized  and  stu 
dent-led  classes. 

But  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  methods  of 
training  are  so  strikingly  different,  the  English 
method  fits  the  English  mind,  and  these  schools 
have  furnished  a  marvellous  dynamo  for  forging 
and  moulding  Englishmen. 

As  far  as  mentality  is  concerned,  and  idealism 
in  the  realm  of  intellectual  imagination,  where 
idealism  is  particularly  regnant,  the  American 
holds  his  own  with  the  Englishman.  Prof. 


American  versus  English  Ideals        123 

Gilbert  Murray  of  Oxford,  after  teaching  Ameri 
can  college  boys  at  Amherst  for  a  year,  in  answer 
to  my  question  regarding  the  difference  he  no 
ticed  among  the  students  of  American  and  Eng 
lish  schools,  replied:  "The  American  boy  is 
more  alert,  usually  I  think  more  intellectual;  he 
adapts  his  knowledge  much  more  readily  to  the 
contemporary  conditions  with  which  he  is  closely 
allied.  He  lacks,  however,  the  background  of 
knowledge,  and  especially  the  knowledge  of  the 
classics  common  among  the  students  of  England. 
He  also  lacks  in  a  certain  reserve,  which  is  one 
of  the  notable  products  of  the  English  public 
schools." 

In  a  peculiar  sense  this  college  and  schoolboy 
life  of  the  two  nations  reflects  the  countries  of 
which  they  are  a  part.  The  Englishman,  re 
pressive,  matter  of  fact,  slow  to  action  but  tena 
cious  to  the  end,  drawing  his  inspirations  from 
staid  and  sacred  traditions  of  a  great  Past,  takes 
his  whole  life  more  practically  and  with  a  self- 
confidence  that  often  refuses  to  admit  that 
idealism  has  part  or  lot  in  his  thinking.  The 
American,  on  the  other  hand,  who  draws  his 
sentiment  and  ideals  from  the  shining  glory  of 
the  present,  is  not  ashamed  either  of  his  dreams 
or  his  optimism.  He  has  already  seen  so  many 


124  American  Ideals 

evidences  of  his  constructive  imagination  that 
he  is  willing  to  believe  the  strangest  miracles 
of  his  mind.  By  the  very  expression  of  his 
enthusiasm  he  grows  more  and  more  convinced 
of  the  possibilities  both  of  his  head  and  of  his 
heart.  As  the  years  roll,  he  will  become  in 
creasingly  conservative,  and  the  mannerisms  of 
a  new  world  state  will  be  tempered  by  the  gentler 
arts  to  which  his  hand  is  already  becoming 
accustomed.  That  he  will  ever  become  English 
either  in  the  spirit  or  the  revelation  of  his  ideals, 
is  not  to  be  expected,  for  the  breath  which  he 
draws  is  filled  with  a  different  ozone,  for  him 
surely  a  more  ratified  and  exhilarating  air.  As 
the  ground  beneath  his  feet  stretches  away  to  a 
continent  whose  borders  only  have  been  touched 
into  life  by  the  magic  of  his  hand,  likewise  his 
idealism  will  grow,  and  his  visions  will  expand 
until  they  are  wide  enough  to  match  his  bound 
less  prairies  and  deep  enough  to  satisfy  his  rest 
less  soul. 


CHAPTER  V 

AMERICAN  VERSUS  ORIENTAL 
IDEALISM 

But  often,  in  the  world's  most  crowded  streets, 
But  often,  in  the  din  of  strife, 
There  rises  an  unspeakable  desire 
After  the  knowledge  of  our  buried  life; 
A  thirst  to  spend  our  fire  and  restless  force 
In  tracking  out  our  true  original  course; 
A  longing  to  inquire 

Into  the  mystery  of  this  heart  that  beats 
So  wild,  so  deep,  in  us;  to  know 
Whence  our  thoughts  come,  and  where  whey  go. 

MAX  MULLER. 


CHAPTER  V 

AMERICAN  VERSUS  ORIENTAL 
IDEALISM 

THE  French  expression,  "s'orienter"-  -"to  find 
one's  East " — is  meaningful  in  these  days  of  quest 
and  change.  This  going  to  the  East,  not  simply 
on  a  Pacific  Mail  steamer,  but  in  one's  thought 
journeys,  is  more  really  than  we  at  times  appre 
ciate  going  back  home,  for  it  is  from  the  East  we 
came,  bringing  with  us  many  of  the  things  we 
value  most  highly. 

The  discovery  of  the  Orient  has  been  the  be 
ginning  of  a  loftier  idealism  for  many  of  the  sons 
of  America  and  Europe.  We  have  learned  in 
our  journeys  and  in  our  studies  that  the  East 
has  always  been  a  golden  wonderland  where  the 
Occidental  has  loved  to  wander  and  to  read  the 
realities  of  the  ideal  world.  Max  Miiller  is  only 
one  of  many  whose  spirits  have  been  aroused  to 
higher  flights  by  the  contemplation  of  the  glories 
associated  with  the  Indus  and  the  Ganges,  whose 
shores  are  opulent  with  an  erudition  and  imagi- 
127 


128  American  Ideals 

nation  comparing  favorably  in  her  golden  age 
with  the  Augustan  period  in  the  West. 

All  the  world  is  debtor  to  the  Aryan  thought 
power,  insight,  and  speculation  which  trail  back 
through  the  social  and  spiritual  history  of  pris 
tine  centuries.  Here  in  the  East  we  find  the 
home  of  the  Sanscrit  literature;  it  is  the  birth 
place  of  religion;  it  is  the  "flower  field  of  the 
soul."  In  the  East  we  find  the  greatest  ethno 
logical  museum  on  the  planet,  the  present-day 
America  to  the  contrary.  It  is  here  and  here 
alone  that  the  Occidental  finds  treasured  some 
of  the  most  precious  prizes  of  humanity,  whether 
we  speak  of  language,  of  philosophy  and  my 
thology,  or  of  those  primitive  arts  and  ideals  that 
have  cast  their  light  far  along  the  ways  trodden 
by  our  modern  feet. 

To  the  East  we  look  for  the  fatherhood  and 
the  motherhood  of  the  most  natural  of  natural 
religions.  Here  are  the  workers  in  the  realm  of 
the  most  fascinating  and  transparent  romance 
and  love  myths,  making  a  jewel  casket  for 
humanity  more  choice  and  inestimable  than  the 
fabled  riches  of  Eastern  kings.  From  the  Orient 
come  the  thinkers  in  the  region  of  the  highly 
subtle  and  serene  metaphysics,  the  framers  of 
some  of  the  most  enduring  social  and  moral 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism     129 

laws;  from  thence  come  the  seers,  the  dreamers, 
and  the  men  who  know  how  to  wait. 

Napoleon  once  called  Egypt  the  most  impor 
tant  land  in  the  world.  It  was  to  find  the  East 
that  Columbus  sailed  in  that  vast  spiritual  ad 
venture  that  discovered  the  Western  hemi 
sphere.  Marco  Polo  and  Commodore  Perry 
stirred  the  Far  Eastern  pool  for  the  healing  of 
the  nations,  and  the  East  India  Company  opened 
doors  through  which  there  have  come  to  us 
influences  that  the  soul  prizes  beyond  money, 
riches  as  incomparable  as  the  undying  verse  of 
Sir  Edwin  Arnold. 

It  is  in  our  present  marvellous  development  of     > 
the  features  of  the  outward  world,  of  modern 
science  and  industry,  of  free  institutions  and 
international    relations,    that   the    East    comes 
to  us  pleading  more  strongly  than  ever  for  the 
primal    emphasis    upon    the    inward    and    true    / 
world  of  historical  and  spiritual  ideas,  for  the    ^ 
awakening  of  the   slumbering  life   of  religion, 
and  the 

"things  invisible 
And  cast  beyond  the  moon." 

The  East  furnishes  to  present-day  America 
the  required  analogy  and  counterpart,  if  not 


130  American  Ideals 

the  essential  ground  work  upon  which  mankind 
in   the   practical   West   must   build   its   super 
structure  of  durable  idealism,  and  thereby  carry 
its   organic   life   to   higher   and   higher   stages. 
5  The  Church  of  England  hit  upon  the  spiritual 
/  truth  when  it  built  all  its  churches  facing  the 
i   East.     It  is  from  the  East  that  the  wind  of  the 
\   spirit  blows.     When  the  needle  of  the  religious 
compass  comes  ta  rest,  it  points  toward  the 
j  East.     Here  lies  the  magnetic  pole. 

Of  all  the  most  pitiable  of  men  is  he  who  has 
not  been  willing  to  learn  by  sincere  respect  and 
careful  study  the  lessons  of  the  great  past, 
lessons  that  come  to  us  out  of  the  night  of 
time.  A  nation,  especially,  standing  in  the 
"foremost  files  of  Western  time"  can  only  at 
her  peril  of  soul  disregard  Asia,  with  her  vast 
contribution  both  to  the  old  and  to  the  new  of 
the  entire  world.  To  disregard  those  and  that 
preceding  us  is  usually  to  disregard  or  to  care 
little  for  those  or  that  which  are  to  come.  To 
such  an  one  life  is  a  chain  of  sand  while  it  ought 
to  be  an  electric  chain,  making  our  hearts 
tremble  and  vibrate  to  the  most  ancient  thought 
of  the  past,  as  well  as  with  the  most  distant 
hopes  of  the  future. 

We    are   quite   generally   convinced   here   in 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism      131 

America,  as  Europe  has  been  for  generations, 
of  the  lofty  intellectual  education  and  spiritual 
elevation  derived  from  Greek  thought.  Upon  it 
has  been  based  the  main  education  of  English 
youth  since  the  thirteenth  century,  and  its 
classic  and  cultural  value,  even  in  these  hard 
utilitarian  days  in  America,  is  never  quite  lost 
to  view  in  our  schools  and  literature.  Yet  we 
care  less  about  the  fact  that  the  springs  of  the 
earliest  Greek  Hebrew  and  Phoenician  writings 
rose  in  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients,  and,  in  a 
very  literal  sense,  flowed  westward  through  the 
"Wise  Men  of  the  East."<^Was  it  not  at  the 
Zoroastrian  altar  that  the  Ionian  sages  lighted 
their  torches  of  philosophy?-*  Was  it  not  the 
conquest  of  Asia  Minor  by  the  Persians  that 
introduced  Thales  and  Anaximenes  and  Her- 
aclitus  to  the  Uranian  myths  and  dogmas  which 
were  destined  to  color  potently  the  entire  mass 
of  Grecian  thought  ?  And  was  not  the  vaunted 
science  of  Moorish  fame  but  the  tapping  of 
Oriental  culture  for  the  modern  world? 

Ill  for  our  learning  and  ill  for  our  good  sense 
of  values  if  we  travel  in  the  Orient  and  read 
Eastern  literature  simply  to  behold  a  phantas 
magoria  of  tourists  and  donkey  trips  along 
the  Nile,  revolting  superstitions  on  the  Ganges, 


132  American  Ideals 

or  even  a  wonderland  of  sentimental  golden 
color,  outlandish  customs  and  legends,  of  the 
meanings  of  which  we  are  often  as  ignorant  as 
of  the  real  nature  of  the  primeval  people  whose 
present  external  and  half  westernized  civiliza 
tion  appears  only  to  delude  and  lead  us  astray. 

It  is  only  as  we  begin  to  sympathize  and  to 
study  with   our  imagination   and   idealism   at 
work,  quite  as  much  as  our  Baedekers  and  pro 
vincialism,  that  we  appreciate  that  much  of  the 
difference  between  our  thought  and  institutions  » 
and  those  of  the  East  consists  in  name  and  not/ 
in  substance  of  belief,  and   that   the   land   on 
thought  and  beauty  is  linked  to  our  land  ofy 
action    and    progress    by   indivisible    ties   that 
have  no  latitude  or  longitude.     We  then  dis 
cover  that  what  we  have  given  to  the  Oriental 
in    machinery    and    modem    innovations    has 
already  been  repaid  us  a  hundredfold  in   the 
coinage  of  mental,  mystical,  and  spiritual  ideas. 

We  have  dwelt  far  too  long  and  too  expati- 
atingly  upon  the  darker  and  more  sensual  side 
of  the  East  in  our  travel  books  and  reports. 
We  have  need  to  remember  that  the  true  spirit 
of  the  Orient  is  seldom  if  ever  revealed  through 
statistical  and  formal  reports  of  agents  polit 
ical,  ecclesiastical,  or  educational,  whose  find- 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism      133 

ings  are  written  all  too  frequently  with  the 
object  of  influencing  a  "constituency,"  or  for 
securing  gifts  to  particular  propaganda.  We 
plead  for  a  point  of  view,  and  that  for  our  own 
sake,  which  will  regard  the  Oriental  otherwise 
than  as  a  heathen  smoking  cheroots  and  kiss 
ing  the  feet  of  wooden  idols;  we  plead  for  a 
regard  and  a  study  of  the  sages  and  prophets, 
especially  those  of  East  India,  who  were  men  of 
deep  intellectual  insight  and  marvellous  vision 
of  the  unseen  but  not  unreal  world,  far  in  ad 
vance  of  many  of  the  mystic  saints  of  the  mid 
dle  European  ages.  These  men  were  taught 
through  generations  "to  look  inward  upon  them 
selves,  upward  to  something  not  themselves,  and 
to  see  whether  they  could  not  understand  a  little 
of  the  true  import  of  that  mystery  which  we 
call  life  upon  earth. " 

First,  then,  in  order  to  learn  the  message  of 
Eastern  idealism  to  America  there  is  required  a 
sympathetic  imagination,  a  fraternal  attitude, 
a  receptive,  broad,  and  as  far  as  possible  an 
unprejudiced  religious  point  of  view.  Some 
one  has  said  that  clouds  are  dark  to  those  who 
are  beneath  them;  but  that  on  the  upper  side, 
where  the  sun  shines,  they  glow  with  golden 
splendor. 


134  American  Ideals 

We  need  first  of  all  to  localize  the  Orient. 
It  is  not  one  as  the  West  is  one,  either  in  geog 
raphy  or  in  civilization  of  the  outer  and  inner 
man.  In  this  comparison  for  this  particular 
purpose  we  would  do  well  to  eliminate  the 
Mohammedan  sections  of  North  Africa,  where 
advanced  thought  has  largely  stagnated,  as 
well  as  certain  parts  of  the  modernized  China 
and  Japan,  where  a  different  set  of  impressions 
as  well  as  a  different  set  of  characteristics  of 
mankind  appear  from  those  which  are  found  in 
East  India,  the  very  heart  of  Asia,  the  Mecca 
and  the  mother  of  idealism. 

It  is  in  the  contrast  of  these  ideals,  especially 
the  ideals  of  the  spirit  and  the  religion  of  India 
and  America,  that  the  sharpest  antitheses  are 
induced  and  the  most  suggestive  thought  is 
aroused. 

Indian  ideals  furnish  instantly  a  decided  con 
trast  to  those  current  in  the  United  States  in 
their  social  import.  As  perhaps  no  country  in 
the  world  has  the  ideal  of  democracy  so  deeply 
ingrained  as  America,  there  is  no  land  intrin 
sically  more  undemocratic  than  India  in  its 
traditional  ideals,  and  no  hierarchy  of  religion 
more  absolute  and  rigid  than  the  Brahmin  caste. 
While  missionary  endeavor  has  done  much  to 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism    135 

prepare  the  way,  the  modern  and  economic  and 
educational  advance  from  the  West  has  been 
perhaps  even  a  more  rapid  force  in  recent  years 
to  lessen  the  social  chasm  existing  between  East 
ern  and  Western  standards  of  society.  Far 
more  than  in  any  European  monarchy  is  it  true 
in  India  that  a  man  born  in  a  certain  grade  or 
partition  of  society  is  inevitably  imprisoned 
there  regardless  of  his  acts  or  any  possible  de-  \ 
velopment.  It  is  one  of  the  first  things  that 
the  American  notices  in  India,  and  he  cannot 
understand  it,  so  utterly  incompatible  is  it  to  his 
Western  ideas  of  social  association. 

In  India  in  the  past,  moreover,  as  in  America 
in  the  present,  idealism  has  found  its  foundation 
in  the  inherent   and   eternal  forces  of  nature.  — 
The  Hindu  has  gone  beyond  the  face  of  nature 
to  inquire  into  its  universal  and  spiritual  laws 
and  the  genesis  of  its  universal  mind;  while  the 
American  has  been  busying  himself  in  the  sub 
duing  and   directing  of  nature's   material   and  * 
more  easily  observed  phenomena.     The  West 
ern    country    has    concerned    herself  with    the 
external  subjugation  of  the  universe,  with  the*, 
"how"   of  natural   law   rather   than   with  the 
"why"  of  the  internal  working  of  this  universe. 
It   has   been   accurately   pointed   out   that  the 


136  American  Ideals 

religion  of  India  resembles  more  closely  Western 
science  in  its  methods  of  procedure,  and  in  that 
very  particular  is  more  unlike  Western  faith, 
which  until  recently  has  looked  askance  at  the 
scientist  as  a  contributor  to  revealed  religion. 
Where  American  belief  says  Man,  Indian  faith 
says  the  Universal,  or  the  Absolute,  into  which 
man  melts  for  his  emancipation.  Where  the 
Westerner  says  Humanity,  the  Easterner  says 
Vision,  and  the  ultimate  aim  of  its  most  thought 
ful  leaders,  as  saints  and  ascetics,  have  been 
with  consistent  energy  to  endeavor  to  see  God 
face  to  face. 

The  methods  also  by  which  the  East  and 
West  have  worked  toward  their  idealism  are 
alike  dissimilar.  (The  East  lays  small  stress  on 
matter.  Essentially  and  eventually  it  is  to  him 
passing  and  illusory.  Buddhism  asserts  that 
the  chief  hindrance  in  the  path  of  progress  to 
ideals  is  the  obstructing  barrier  of  Desire;  the 
Hindu  holds  before  his  eyes  the  subduing  of 
it,  not  by  chaining  it,  as  would  the  American, 
but  through  the  influence  of  meditation  and 
the  continued  discipline  of  reflection  and  retire 
ment  from  the  world,  to  gain  over  it  a  spiritual 
ascendancy. 

The  only  lasting  peace  of  the  spirit,  says  the 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism      137 

Hindu,  resides  in  a  gradual  but  certain  drawing 
apart  from  all  the  troublous  scenes  and  ephem 
eral  temporalities  of  the  garish  day,  until  the 
spirit  shall  be  actually  unfettered  and  the  eye 
clarified  to  behold  perfect  knowledge  and  un 
sullied  purity.  While  the  Bible,  in  the  con 
ception  of  the  American,  leads  by  service  to  his 
ideals,  the  Vedanta  conducts  the  Indian  soul  by 
knowledge,  by  love,  or  by  emancipated  motive, 
as  the  case  may  be.  The  aim  of  one  is  brother 
hood,  the  aim  of  the  other  is  the  personal  knowl 
edge  of  the  Universe  of  God.  Each  needs  the 
other  for  completeness.  Each  is  but  the  half 
truth  of  complete  and  perfected  idealism.  The 
New  Testament  may  gain  from  the  Vedas,  while 
without  the  idealism  practical  and  philanthropic 
of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus,  Indian  metaphysics  is  a 
chartless  ship  upon  a  vague  and  mystic  sea. 

The  absence  of  dependence  upon  scientific  or 
historical  phenomena  furnishes  a  striking  char 
acteristic  difference  to  Western  ideas  and  prog 
ress.  The  Indian  bases  all  or  chiefly  all  of  his 
advance  upon  the  unassisted  personal  thought 
and  experience,  unfettered  by  the  impedimenta 
of  past,  present,  or  future  materiality.  He 
must  escape  from  the  world  with  its  time  and 
sense  limitations,  and  the  pathway  of  his  de- 


138  American  Ideals 

liverance  is  by  the  road  of  thought.  The 
American  contrastingly  is  working  at  the  domi 
nation  of  nature,  the  force  which  his  Indian 
brother  is  deeply  engaged  in  meditating  ways  to 
elude. 

{  The  Easterner  is  primarily  interested  in  ideas, 
:he  American  in  action;  the  Easterner's  forte  is 
sentiment  and  imagination,  the  American's 
•eason  and  science.  In  the  East  life  is  the  ideal, 
while  in  the  West  the  ideal  is  more  often  the 
living. J  The  Bengali  Hindu  is  said  to  be  the 
most  unpractical  creature  on  earth;  "a  dreamer 
and  a  great  failure"  is  the  description  by  Sarojini 
Naidu,  the  Indian  poetess,  of  her  father,  who 
typifies  the  men  of  his  class;  the  American 
business  man  is  known  the  world  over  for  his 
practicality  and  directness,  his  shrewdness  in 
the  bargaining  of  things  material,  and  he  is 
less  frequently  a  failure,  at  least  from  the  stand 
point  of  the  accumulation  of  wealth. 

The  American  depends  upon  the  world  of  time 
and  practical  material  foundations.  These  are 
the  chief  stimuli  for  the  awakening  and  the 
enlistment  of  his  ideal  powers.  The  Oriental  be 
lieves  that  in  the  calm  and  discipline  of  medita 
tion,  self-analysis,  and  synthesis,  Truth,  the  all 
important  thing  to  be  striven  for  in  life,  can  be 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism     139 

attained.  To  the  American  the  most  revered 
term  in  India,  "Saint,"  is  comparatively  mean 
ingless,  while  the  Western  idol  of  industrialism 
leaves  the  traditional  Hindu  mind  quite  un 
stirred. 

The  great  deeps  of  India's  millions  are  still 
Indian,  intensely  so  in  their  idealism,  true  to 
the  national  ideas  and  ideals  of  their  forefathers. 
That  which  Puritanism  gave  in  morals  and  faith 
in  America,  the  Dharma,  the  National  Right 
eousness  of  the  old  Hindu  ascetics,  accomplished 
for  India.  It  has  given  her  a  bent  toward 
national  consciousness  well-nigh  unintelligible, 
without  study,  to  Europe  or  to  the  United  States. 

To  be  sure  these  terms  and  this  spirit  are  being 
modified  on  the  surface  just  now  by  the  invading 
economic  West,  which  is  pressing  its  way  into  all 
the  departments  of  the  Eastern  world.  The 
outward  progress  of  this  modification  would 
lead  the  superficial  observer  to  believe  that  the 
East  was  becoming  West  with  a  bound.  I 
found  the  Gaekwar  of  Baroda  establishing  a 
system  of  compulsory  education  and  installing 
cinematographs  throughout  Baroda  State.  I 
found  Brahmins  of  Bombay  organizing  an  ag 
ricultural  college  to  which  they  were  planning 
to  send  their  own  sons:  almost  an  unheard-of 


140  American  Ideals 

thing  in  Indian  history,  to  see  the  thinking  class 
harboring  for  a  moment  the  idea  of  soiling  their 
hands  with  the  labor  that  has  always  belonged 
to  the  lower  orders  of  society.  The  students 
also  in  the  five  great  government  universities 
were  found  exhibiting  almost  a  mania  for  learn 
ing  to  read  and  speak  English,  simply  because 
English  is  the  quickest  road  to  success  in 
government,  official,  and  even  in  industrial 
preferment.  One  of  the  most  prominent  heads 
of  a  great  business  enterprise  in  Calcutta  is  a 
Hindu  of  high  caste,  but  he  is  wise  enough  to 
commit  the  offices  of  chief  trust  and  responsi 
bility  in  his  firm  to  foreigners,  recognizing  the 
limitation  of  his  countrymen,  through  years  of 
training  along  philosophical  and  spiritual  lines, 
to  cope  with  the  keen  competitive  minds  and 
equipment  of  the  Englishman. 

Nor  is  this  tendency  of  the  Indian  to  keep 
away  from  practical  affairs  a  dead  letter,  even 
in  the  midst  of  these  secularizing  tendencies. 
In  the  same  city  in  which  the  things  are  occurring 
of  which  we  have  been  writing  I  found  dozens 
of  the  Hindus,  who  were  the  best  trained  intel 
lectually  of  the  natives  whom  I  met,  deliberately 
planning  to  give  up  participation  in  the  active 
life  of  affairs  in  order  to  go  off  into  an  isolated 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism      141 

place  to  become  Sanyassis,  and  to  devote  the 
entire  remainder  of  their  life,  in  accordance 
with  Indian  custom,  to  meditation  and  the  dis 
covery  of  those  principles  which  they  believe  to 
be  most  potent  in  solving  for  them  the  riddle  of 
the  spiritual  universe. 

One  can  hardly  conceive  of  more  antipodal 
contrasts  in  ideals  than  those  existing  for  the 
normal  life  work  in  India  and  in  America  re 
spectively.  To  the  Indians  for  generations  life 
is  a  matter  to  be  divided  into  four  divisions: 
first,  the  life  as  a  child  and  a  student;  second, 
as  a  householder  and  the  father  of  a  family; 
third,  a  partial  recluse,  leaving  the  business 
world,  but  not  necessarily  his  family  ties;  and 
fourth,  the  ascetic  or  Sanyassi  period  when  he 
leaves  everything,  business,  family,  all,  and  re 
tires  to  the  jungle  or  the  desert  with  his  staff  and 
begging  bowl  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  his 
most  revered  national  heroes. 

The  American,  in  sharp  contrast,  regards  his 
early  education  simply  as  a  preparation  for  his 
business  or  his  professional  career,  and  at  the 
full  meridian  of  his  manhood,  when  the  Indian 
is  thinking  about  leaving  the  strife  of  the  world, 
his  Western  antithesis  is  enlarging  his  activities, 
and  beginning  to  see  the  fruit  of  his  experience 


142  American  Ideals 

and  his  toil.  Later  on,  should  the  American 
leave  his  much  loved  activity,  which  he  is  in 
creasingly  loath  to  do,  it  certainly*  is  not  for 
purposes  of  asceticism,  but  notably  for  an  oppo 
site  reason,  in  order  that  he  may  enjoy  the  com 
forts  and  emoluments  of  his  successful  years. 

The  loss  to  India  by  this  retirement  through 
out  the  centuries,  especially  in  the  economic, 
commercial,  and  industrial  worlds,  of  the  best 
brains  of  the  empire,  has  been  untold.  That 
the  Indian  is  this  intellectual,  and  highly  gifted, 
and  as  one  has  described  him,  "a  radiant 
Asiatic  personage,"  with  powers  of  philosophical 
and  mystical  thought  far  in  advance  of  the 
Westerner,  can  be  easily  verified  by  any  one  who 
takes  the  pains  to  become  acquainted  with  the 
upper  classes  of  these  remarkable  men  and 
women.  They  constantly  impress  one  with  the 
thought  of  what  would  have  been  possible  in 
India  if  these  talented  people  had  given  their 
attention  to  industrial  enterprises  as  in  America, 
or  to  militarism  as  in  Germany.  As  it  is,  they 
afford  to  our  Western  eyes,  intent  upon  activity 
and  many-sided  business,  the  example  of  charac 
ter  and  ideals  that  alone  can  eventuate  from 
reflection  upon  the  world  and  man's  relation  to 
it,  gathering  its  power  and  conviction,  not  from 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism      143 

test  tubes  and  workshops,  machinery  and  mer 
chandise,  but  from  meditation  and  personal 
experience  in  first-hand  contact  with  considera 
tions  of  the  perfect  and  the  true.  The  question 
in  India  is:  "What  is  true  for  me?"  not  "What 
have  others  found  out,  or  what  have  scientists 
observed?"  The  Hindu's  religion  and  ideals  are 
peculiarly  individual,  and  can  never  be  made 
second  hand  or  received  whole  from  his  an 
cestors. 

America,  the  land  of  widespread  missionary 
idealism,  the  country  from  which  millions  of 
dollars  go  yearly  to  support  American  workers 
in  Asia,  is  not  always  conscious  of  the  striking 
contrasts  in  aims  and  motives  that  actuate  life 
in  the  Eastern  and  the  Western  world.  It  has 
been  doubtless  because  of  these  abysmal  differ 
ences  in  ideals  that  the  success  of  Western  mis 
sionaries  in  reaching  especially  the  intellectual 
element  in  Eastern  civilization  has  been  so 
surprisingly  slow.  In  India,  especially,  while 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  lower  classes  have 
been  won  t£>  Christianity  (and  not  always  for 
reasons  otherwise  than  economic  and  the  gaining 
of  a  higher  social  standing),  the  failure  of  West 
ern  religious  idealism  among  the  gifted  and 
leading  classes  has  been  as  marked  almost  as 


144  American  Ideals 

the  despairful  efforts  to  win  over  the  Moslem 
to  the  Christian  faith.  While  recent  moderniza 
tion  has  loosened  the  faith  of  the  Oriental  in 
certain  of  his  traditional  philosophical  and  relig 
ious  tenets,  his  wide  knowledge  and  conception 
of  what  he  considers  to  be  the  failure  of  Chris 
tianity  in  Western  nations  has  not  induced  him 
to  exchange  his  own  faith  for  that  of  the  for 
eigner. 

The  bringing  of  thoughtful,  sensible,  and  more 
truly  unprejudiced  missionaries  of  the  tolerant 
sort  into  touch  with  the  Oriental  in  recent  years 
has  tended  to  bring  about,  it  must  be  noted, 
both  in  India  and  in  all  Eastern  nations,  a  de 
cided  change  in  the  methods  of  working,  and 
also  a  more  thorough  realization  on  the  part  of 
Americans  that  the  Easterner  has  grasped  his 
set  of  religious  truths  with  a  devoted  intelligence 
as  surprising  as  it  is  impregnable  to  the  Western 
propagandist. 

Those  who  have  read  the  autobiography  of 
Dr.  John  E.  Clough,  whose  successes  were  as 
great  as  his  tolerance,  will  get  a  glimpse  into 
this  growing  mental  sympathy  of  our  best  mis 
sionary  ideals  as  they  have  come  into  contact 
with  Eastern  thought.  Going  out  to  India  as 
a  Baptist  missionary  to  the  Telegus  from  one  of 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism     145 

the  new  Western  colleges,  a  true  American, 
devoted  to  his  particular  and  not  over-liberal 
brand  of  faith,  he  carried  with  him  the  American 
adaptable  energy  and  the  self-confidence,  not  un 
touched  by  American  provincialism.  He  tells 
how  his  forty  years  among  the  low-caste  Matigas 
and  Telegu  communities  virtually  revolution 
ized  his  ideas  and  made  over  his  faith  in  almost 
all  his  original  doctrines,  save  those  naked 
fundamentals  relating  to  the  uniqueness  of  the 
Christian  gospel  of  brotherly  love. 

"It  distressed  many  thoughtful  men  and  women 
in  Christian  lands  at  that  time,"  he  writes,  "to  think 
that  unless  the  heathen  heard  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  accepted  it,  they  would  be  eternally  lost. 
This  was  my  opinion  when  I  went  to  India.  It 
formed  my  missionary  motive.  I  looked  upon  the 
Hindus  as  simply  heathen;  I  wanted  to  see  them 
converted.  As  the  years  passed  I  grew  tolerant,  and 
often  told  the  caste  people  that  if  they  could  not  or 
would  not  receive  Jesus  Christ  as  their  Saviour,  to 
serve  their  own  gods  faithfully.  During  my  visits 
to  America  I  sometimes  told  American  audiences 
that  the  Hindus  were  in  some  respects  better  than 
they." 

With  such  growing  tolerant  respect  for  East 
erners,  Dr.  Clough's  work  experienced  a  striking 


146  American  Ideals 

success,  and  when  he  left  India  for  the  last 
time,  in  1903,  the  Telegu  mission  over  which  he 
presided  had  one  hundred  missionaries,  50,000 
members,  and  200,000  adherents. 

Dr.  dough's  American  power  of  adjustment, 
associated  with  an  ever-growing,  broader,  and 
deeper  love  for  humanity  in  the  large,  which  the 
New  Testament  teaches  all  in  vain  for  many 
propagandists,  taught  him  sympathetic  im 
agination;  he  caught  the  true  nature  of  the 
Indian  situation.  He  learned  that  by  unity 
and  not  antipathy  a  man  learns  the  heart  of 
another  race  of  men;  he  lost  his  theology  and  the 
usual  "heathen"  illusions  current  at  home;  he 
became  "all  things  to  all  men/'  and  exemplified 
in  an  illuminating  instance  the  effective  type  of 
missionary  idealism  of  America. 

It  reveals  its  trend  of  progress  slowly  but 
certainly  toward  the  discovery  that  when  the 
spirit  of  man  truly  aspires  Godward,  be  it  under 
the  cold  gray  skies  of  the  West  or  beneath  the 
warmer  glory  of  the  Southern  Cross,  there  is  or 
should  be  no  East,  no  West,  no  dividing  sym 
bolism,  no  obstructing  superior  or  inferior  creed 
— only  a  vast  world  soul  with  restless  and  insa 
tiable  aspirations  reaching  up  to  its  Creator  and 
filled  with  infinite  longing  for  its  Eternal  Home. 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism     147 

What  Eastern  ideals  then  coincide  with 
American,  and  in  what  particular  way  can  we 
"find  our  East?"  It  goes  without  saying 
that  the  first  essential  is  a  large  ability  of  re- 
ceptiveness.  We  must  be  ready  to  see  our 
limitations  and  be  willing,  as  the  Japanese  have 
been,  to  borrow  the  best  things  from  other 
nations.  Emerson  once  said  that  great  genial 
power  comes,  not  by  being  original  at  all,  but 
rather  in  being  altogether  receptive. 

It  is  in  the  realm  of  ideas,  rather  than  things, 
that  we  have  always  been  borrowers  from  the 
Orient,  and  ideas  are  stronger  than  armies. 
Even  baseless  ideas  like  those  on  which  much  of 
Buddhism  rests,  with  its  ceaseless  revolving 
gyrations  of  reincarnated  worlds,  moving  like 
dancing  dervishes,  even  these  ideas  have  had 
already  an  enormous  effect  upon  Europe  and 
are  not  absent  from  our  present-day  thought. 

The  reflex  action  of  Indian  ideas  is  seen  in  our 
acceptance  of  Oriental  art  and  Asiatic  decora 
tion,  while  Eastern  coloring  is  now  a  common 
place  in  our  country.  The  attempt  of  certain 
religious  sects  to  prove  and  to  exhibit  concretely 
the  fact  that,  through  the  domination  of  self 
by  the  grasp  upon  spiritual  principles  and  truth, 
there  can  be  brought  about  the  rulership  of  the 


148  American  Ideals 

body,  sin,  and  disease,  seems  to  be  one  of  the 
growing  and  successful  ideas  in  America.  The 
insistence  upon  the  illusiveness  of  matter  by 
many  religious  people  is  peculiarly  suggestive 
of  "  Maya,"  or  the  "all  is  illusion"  idea  of  the  old 
Vedanta. 

Furthermore,  if  we  are  to  take  the  interpreta 
tion  of  Walt  Whitman  at  the  hands  of  Mr.  J.  A. 
Symonds,  we  are  led  to  the  conclusion  that  this 
presence  of  the  all-pervading  Universal  Spirit 
emphasized  in  the  East  is  the  very  core  of  the 
Whitman  philosophy. 

These  Eastern  ideas  find  also  sympathetic 
reception  in  the  Western  world  in  the  realm  of 
our  daily  life  and  standards  of  living.  This 
is  not  seen  so  much  in  their  abstract  meta 
physics,  for  we  in  America  are  too  much  inter 
ested  and  impressed  by  our  material  successes 
to  be  deeply  moved  by  the  thought  of  depend 
ence  upon  the  universal  laws  or  the  spirit 
behind  the  Universe.  We  are  rather  receptive 
to  the  Asiatic  quietness  and  freedom  from  social 
restraint,  the  need  of  which  is  already  troubling 
us  as  a  nation.  There  are  repeated  indications 
revealing  the  fact  that  Americans  are  concerned 
over  the  loss  of  thought  periods,  and  the  proper 
adjustment  of  their  leisure  time  to  things  that 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism     149 

are  worth  while  and  capable  of  bringing  deep 
est  satisfactions. 

In  our  large  cities  especially,  the  constant 
being  "on  the  wheel"  of  duties  and  engagements, 
and  the  never-ending  social  obligations,  are 
getting  on  the  nerves  of  even  the  restless,  action- 
loving  people.  They  are  looking  about  more 
eagerly  than  ever  before  for  a  mode  of  life  and 
ideals  of  conduct  that  will  liberate  them  from 
the  slavery  of  a  thousand  things  they  must  do 
and  which  often  they  care  little  about,  things 
with  which,  in  fact,  they  would  not  fill  their 
lives  were  it  not  conventionally  correct  and 
necessitous  to  contemporary  civilization  in  the 
United  States. 

The  art  of  being  quiet,  the  habit  of  contem 
plation,  the  will  power  necessary  to  fence  off 
one's  life  for  a  time  to  be  alone,  these  are  almost 
lost  arts  and  vanishing  ideals  in  the  midst  of 
the  present-day  exacting  city  life.  It  is  partly 
because  of  the  adherence  to  these  endless 
"duties"  of  business  and  social  existence  that 
the  Oriental  of  high  breeding  and  culture  finds 
our  civilization  irksome  and  in  contrast  prefers 
his  own.  Outside  of  the  requirements  of  relig 
ion,  and  the  necessary  obedience  to  the  govern 
ing  authorities,  the  Oriental  feels  less  restraint 


150  American  Ideals 

than  does  the  Occidental,  and  some  of  our 
customs  would  be  unsupportable  to  him,  leaving 
him  little  time  for  his  favorite  occupation  of 
meditation  and  discussion,  requiring  intellectual 
and  religious  thought. 

An  English  writer  has  quoted  from  a  Turkish 
gentleman  whose  dilemma  in  changing  his  life 
from  the  Near  East  to  Paris  reveals  somewhat 
humorously  the  Oriental's  point  of  view  in 
these  matters.  It  is  also  a  thought-provoking 
paragraph  for  our  restless,  rushing  days: 

What  I  complain  of  is  the  mode  of  life.  I  am 
impressed,  not  by  the  official  duties,  they  are  easy, 
Turkey  has  few  affairs — but  by  the  social  ones.  I 
have  had  to  write  fifteen  notes  this  morning  all 
about  trifles.  In  Turkey  life  is  sans  gene;  if  a  man 
calls  on  you  he  does  not  leave  a  card;  if  he  sends  you 
a  nosegay,  he  does  not  expect  a  letter  of  thanks;  if  he 
invites  you,  he  does  not  require  an  answer.  There 
are  no  engagements  to  be  remembered  and  fulfilled 
a  fortnight  afterward.  When  you  wish  to  see  a 
friend,  you  know  that  he  dines  at  sunset;  you  get 
into  your  caique,  and  row  down  to  him,  through  the 
finest  scenery  in  the  world.  You  find  him  in  his 
garden,  smoke  his  chibouque,  talk  or  remain  silent 
as  you  like,  dine,  and  return.  If  you  wish  to  see  a 
Minister,  you  go  to  his  office;  you  are  not  interfered 
with  or  even  announced;  you  lift  the  curtain  of  his 
audience  room,  sit  by  him  on  his  divan,  smoke  your 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism     151 

pipe,  tell  your  story,  get  his  answer,  and  have  finished 
your  business  in  the  time  it  would  take  here  to  make 
an  appointment — in  half  the  time  that  you  waste 
here  in  an  ante-chamber. 

There  is  no  dressing  for  dinners  nor  for  evening 
parties;  evening  parties,  indeed,  do  not  exist.  There 
are  no  letters  to  receive  or  to  answer.  There  is  no 
post  hour  to  be  remembered  and  waited  for.  Life 
glides  away  without  trouble. 

Here  everything  is  troublesome.  All  enjoyment 
is  destroyed  by  the  forms  and  ceremonies,  which  are 
intended,  I  suppose,  to  increase  it  or  to  protect  it. 
My  Liberal  friends  here  complain  of  the  want  of 
political  liberty.  What  I  complain  of  is  the  want  of 
social  liberty;  it  is  far  more  important.  Few  people 
suffer  from  a  despotism  of  the  government,  and  those 
suffer  only  occasionally.  But  this  social  despotism, 
this  despotism  of  salons,  this  code  of  arbitrary  little 
reglements,  observances,  prohibitions,  and  exigencies, 
affects  everybody  and  every  day  and  every  hour. 

We  believe  it  will  be  possible  to  find  Americans 
who  would  not  only  smile  but  also  supplicate 
for  a  taste  of  Oriental  customs  that  would  leave 
them  free  from  social  and  oftentimes  distressing 
and  time-consuming  obligations.  The  deliver 
ance  from  the  oppression  of  being  driven  al 
ways  by  details  would  bring  to  the  American  not 
passivity  or  the  afternoon  temper  of  the  East 
(who  could  imagine  an  American  yogi?),  but  it 


152  American  Ideals 

would  bring  about  that  precious  jewel  far  too 
uncommon  in  America — peace  of  mood.  It 
would  deliver  many  a  man  from  worry  by  giving 
him  a  new  perspective  and  the  steadier  grasp 
upon  his  preemptory  task.  With  the  inculca 
tion  of  such  ideals  and  customs,  all  too  strange 
in  the  United  States,  there  would  come  a  sense 
of  triumph  over  our  work  and  the  ensnaring 
affiliations  that  war  against  the  gaining  of  new 
forces  of  will  and  the  attaining  to  a  higher  su 
premacy  of  spirit  of  which  Americans  are  truly 
capable.  It  would  also  add  to  that  "inward 
rest"  of  which  Charles  Kingsley  has  spoken:  >• 

I  know  that  what  we  all  want  is  inward  rest,  rest 
of  heart  and  brain.  The  calm,  strong,  self-contained, 
self-denying  character  which  needs  no  stimulus,  for 
it  has  no  fits  of  depression;  which  needs  no  narcotics, 
for  it  has  no  fits  of  excitement;  it  needs  no  ascetic 
restraint,  for  it  is  strong  enough  to  use  God's  gift — 
without  abusing  it.  A  character,  in  a  word,  which 
is  truly  temperate,  not  in  drink  and  food  merely,  but 
in  all  desires,  thoughts,  and  actions. 

After  all,  are  not  ideals  of  any  sort  dependent 
largely  upon  having  time  "to  think  into  it,"  as 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  once  explained  the  secret  of  his 
discoveries.  The  example  of  President  Wilson, 
cutting  himself  free  from  a  round  of  distracting 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism     153 

official  and  social  functions,  refusing  to  see  office 
seekers,  slipping  away  alone  from  the  White 
House,  leaving  diplomats  and  politicians,  to 
gether  with  endless  consultations,  behind  him 
in  order  to  secure  solitude  in  which  to  think 
through  high  matters  of  state — this  example  of 
our  chief  magistrate  has  made  a  deep  and  whole 
some  impression  upon  the  country:  it  has  raised 
national  respect  for  the  ideals  of  restraint  and 
thought  power,  the  gifts  in  which  the  Oriental 
excels. 

There  is  still  one  other  bond  of  helpful  union 
existing  between  Oriental  and  Occidental  ideal 
ism;  it  exists  in  the  realm  of  the  imagination  and 
in  that  bond  of  mystic  feeling  which  belong  alike 
to  both  of  these  antipodal  worlds.  Idealism,  it 
may  be  remarked,  has  small  respect  for  latitudes 
or  points  of  the  compass.  While  the  American 
would  not  be  denned  primarily  as  a  romanticist, 
neither  would  he  be  accused  usually  of  mysticism, 
yet  in  both  of  these  elements  his  nature  is  rich 
and  inevitably  seeking  for  expression.  He  lives 
in  a  terrestrial  and  practical  world,  but  poetry 
and  sentiment  lurk  within  him,  and  only  await 
the  awakening  touch  of  strong  incident  or  soul- 
arousing  circumstance.  Far  more  readily  than 
the  matter-of-fact  Englishman  would  the  Amer- 


154  American  Ideals 

lean  understand  and  sympathize  with  the  East 
Indian. 

"We  worship  the  Ganges  with  the  water  of 
the  Ganges,"  says  the  Hindu,  "but  we  must 
worship." 

It  seems  at  first  glance  a  far  cry  from  the 
man  who  worships  the  Ganges  to  the  hard- 
headed  business  American.  With  all  his  urgent 
aggressiveness,  however,  and  his  practicality,  so 
unlike  the  Easterner,  there  is  an  inevitable  vein 
of  worship  in  America,  not  in  terms  of  the  gold 
standard,  but  in  the  language  of  those  elements 
that  have  to  do  with  a  higher  pantheism.  It  is 
not  difficult  to  find  Americans  with  a  tendency 
to  dream  dreams,  to  feel  deeply  the  passion  for 
beauty  in  all  her  myriad  forms,  and  in  those 
highest  expressions  of  mystic  and  romantic 
charm  which  his  money  is  inadequate  to  pur 
chase  for  him.  George  William  Curtis,  who 
dreamed  of  his  castles  in  Spain  in  a  narrow  New 
York  tenement  house,  is  not  a  solitary  type. 

This  idealism  of  feeling,  sentiment,  and  at 
times  of  mysticism  is  revealed  in  a  hundred  ways 
in  America.  It  takes  on  well-nigh  every  form, 
from  the  characteristics  of  the  man  of  my  ac 
quaintance  who  spends  his  vacations  and  every 
Saturday  in  the  woods,  planting  seeds  whose 


American  versus  Oriental  Idealism      155 

flowering  other  eyes  than  his  own  will  see,  to  the 
baker  whom  we  know,  who  plays  the  harp  be 
cause  the  artistic  side  of  his  nature  must  have 
an  outlet. 

To  be  sure,  the  average  American  is  a  bit 
chary  of  talking  much  about  these  elements  of 
his  nature  in  a  land  where  everything  is  so 
strictly  business.  But  if  you  get  him  alone  on 
some  long  vague  walk  at  night  by  the  sea  be 
neath  the  stars,  you  will  find  the  great  deeps  of 
his  life's  loyalties  breaking  up,  and  there  below 
all  his  furious  and  often  premeditated  attempts 
at  concealment  you  will  discover  the  real  man 
of  dreams  and  visions.  Here  he  displays  all  the 
subtle  charm  of  youth  that  is  lost  in  the  sense 
of  its  own  significance.  Here  he  moves  about 
in  a  mysterious  paradise,  natural  to  him,  for  it 
is  all  his  own.  Here  he  reveals  the  man  of  emo 
tion,  and  undefined  longings,  and  a  deep  sense  of 
the  romantic  possibilities  of  life. 

There  is  probably  no  person  extant  whose  vein 
of  mysticism  and  worship  of  the  things  of  the 
spirit  lies  deeper,  or  whose  interest  in  things  of 
soulful  import  can  be  more  easily  aroused  than 
is  the  case  with  the  East  Indian;  it  is  our  belief 
that  the  American  in  his  inherent  nature  comes 
next  in  possession  of  these  subtle  characteristics 


156  American  Ideals 

of  emotion  and  poetic  feeling,  which  need  only 
time  and  surcease  from  his  exacting  round  of  pro 
saic  practicalities  to  be  brought  to  the  surface. 
Many  an  American  aspiration,  freed  from  its 
restricting  bonds,  would  take  up  the  strain  of  the 
Chinese  poet  as  indicative  of  its  most  genuine 
idealism: 

The  Lady  Moon  is  my  lover, 
My  friends  are  the  oceans  four, 
The  Heavens  have  roofed  me  over, 
And  the  dawn  is  my  golden  door. 
I  would  liefer  follow  the  condor 
Or  the  seagull  soaring  from  ken, 
Than  bury  my  Godhead  yonder 
In  the  dust  of  the  whirl  of  men. 

The  American  one  day  in  the  fullness  of  time 
will  "find  his  East,"  and  when  that  hour  arrives 
there  will  be  a  betrothal  before  the  eyes  of  the 
world  between  Orient  and  Occident  such  as 
never  before  was  known. 


CHAPTER  VI 
EDUCATION  THE  AMERICAN  PASSION 

The  theory  of  education  we  are  attempting  to  set 
forth  is  one  that  assumes  that  the  activities  of  life 
should  be  evaluated  according  to  a  spiritual  standard 
which  finds  the  highest  good  of  man  in  the  perfection 
of  his  spiritual  nature — in  nobility  of  heart  and  mind, 
in  reverence  and  awe,  in  contemplation  of  the  accept 
ance  of  duty  in  strenuous  endeavor,  in  earnest  long 
ing  for  truth,  in  appreciation  of  beauty,  in  an  esti 
mate  of  the  things  of  life  consistent  with  the  view 
that  what  a  man  is  far  outweighs  what  he  has, 
whether  of  material  or  intellectual  possessions. 

J.  WELTON,  D.  LITT. 
University  of  Leeds. 


CHAPTER  VI 
EDUCATION  THE  AMERICAN  PASSION 

DR.  CHARLES  W.  ELIOT,  the  emeritus  American 
educator  and  father  of  schoolmasters,  has  set 
before  his  countrymen  this  ideal  of  the  educated 
man: 

A  man  of  quick  perception,  broad  sympathies,  and 
wide  affinities,  responsive  but  independent;  self- 
reliant  but  deferential,  loving  truth  and  candor,  but 
also  moderation  and  proportion;  courageous  but 
gentle;  not  finished,  but  perfecting. 

Something  of  an  order  to  be  sure,  and  also  a 
reminder  of  the  cultural  American  of  Emerson's 
period  rather  than  of  these  modern  days  of 
scientific  educational  absorption;  but  that  this 
or  something  akin  to  it  has  ceased  to  be  the 
inherent  ideal  of  the  nation,  consciously  or  un 
consciously  held,  not  even  those  who  are  most 
intimately  familiar  with  the  manifold  and  com 
plex  attempts  to  adjust  the  new  processes  of 
natural  science  to  the  ever-changing  conditions 
of  daily  living,  will  be  swift  to  deny. 


160  American  Ideals 

The  educational  ideal  in  America,  like  many 
another  one,  is  an  inheritance,  a  strain  of  blood, 
and  it  has  woven  itself  inextricably  into  the 
pattern  and  the  product  of  the  Republic.  It 
has  become  more  and  more  a  passion  with  us, 
this  idea  of  the  right  and  riches  of  training;  it  is 
a  thing  we  as  a  nation  care  for  more  than  we 
care  for  money  or  for  power  if  the  sign  of  such 
allegiance  can  be  measured  by  the  sacrificial 
wealth  and  energy  we  pour  out  for  its  possession. 

That  the  "school  must  save  the  state"  as  well 
as  the  individual  is  no  empty  sentiment  in  this 
land.  It  is  history.  It  is  the  most  profound 
conviction  of  experience.  It  is  the  chief  con 
cern  of  American  democracy.  The  schoolhouse 
that  our  Pilgrim  forefathers  placed  so  promptly 
beside  the  church  when  this  new  world  of  the 
West  was  born  has  been  repaired;  it  has  been 
enlarged;  but  it  has  never  been  torn  down.  Our 
fathers  and  our  mothers  taught  in  it  a  mere 
handful  of  country  school  children  when  their 
own  torch  of  learning  was  a  tallow  dip  by  night 
and  a  few  battered  textbooks;  and  to-day 
700,000  teachers  in  the  United  States  follow  in 
their  train,  and  with  every  equipment  known  to 
modernity  these  are  opening  the  book  of  knowl 
edge  to  28,000,000  American  youth. 


Education  the  American  Passion        161 

For  this  educational  ideal  the  people  of  the 
United  States  spend  yearly  $700,000,000 — two 
thirds  of  this  amount  upon  schools  and  colleges 
supported  by  public  funds — more  wealth  than 
the  total  for  army,  navy,  pensions,  and  interest 
on  the  public  debt  taken  together.  The  people  of 
the  country  have  replaced  the  small  New  England 
schoolhouses  with  school  property  for  which 
they  have  expended  $1,200,000,000.  The  public 
schools  with  their  20,000,000  of  young  people 
have  been  called  "the  vital  knot'*  of  the  social  or 
ganism,  and  school  problems  have  become  almost 
synonymous  with  national  problems.  Truly  if 
America  is  another  word  for  opportunity,  educa 
tion  is  the  key  that  the  people  use  with  which  to 
translate  the  term  into  avenues  of  utilization. 

American  education  draws  many  of  its  ideals 
as  well  as  its  vital  impulse  from  its  Pilgrim  an 
cestry,  and  the  early  settlers  of  the  land  decided 
at  the  start  much  of  the  destiny  and  the  educa 
tional  passion  of  the  nation.  They  helped  to 
make  education  in  America  a  firm  and  almost 
intuitive  conviction  that  no  child  or  person  who 
wants  it,  or  has  for  it  a  desire  and  capacity, 
should  be  denied  the  chance  of  schooling. 

"If  a  boy  in  any  country  village,"  writes  James 
Russell  Lowell,  "showed  uncommon  parts,  the  clergy- 


162  American  Ideals 

man  was  sure  to  hear  of  it.  He  and  the  squire  and 
the  doctor,  if  there  was  one,  talked  it  over,  and  the 
boy  was  sure  to  be  helped  onward  to  college;  for  next 
to  the  five  points  of  Calvinism  our  ancestors  believed 
in  a  college  education;  that  is,  in  the  best  education 
that  was  to  be  secured.  The  system,  if  system  it 
could  be  called,  was  a  good  one,  a  practical  applica 
tion  of  the  Doctrine  of  Natural  Selection.  Ah! 
how  the  parents — nay,  the  whole  family — moiled 
and  pinched  that  their  boy  might  have  the  chance 
denied  to  them!" 

The  ideal  of  education,  a  corner  stone  of  the 
New  England  commonwealths,  has  thus  stood 
historically  in  the  United  States  for  intellectual 
independence  as  truly  as  the  Constitution  has 
signified  our  political  freedom.  Americans  have 
always  believed  in  the  democracy  of  the  mental 
powers.  In  these  early  educational  efforts  in 
Massachusetts  and  Virginia,  our  forefathers 
lifted  the  states  out  of  mere  geographical  pio 
neering  into  the  realm  of  the  ideal,  the  intellec 
tual,  and  the  abiding.  These  first  educators,  with 
their  penchant  for  individualism,  which  has 
grown  with  the  nation's  growth,  and  has  made 
the  United  States  probably  the  most  truly  dis 
tinctive  nation  on  earth  as  regards  the  attention 
given  to  individual  training,  started  a  school  sys 
tem — if  it  could  be  thus  dignified — that  never 


Education  the  American  Passion       163 

could  have  eventuated  in  a  fast  national  caste. 
In  the  words  of  Emerson,  these  early  educational 
pioneers  believed  in  the  " infinitude  of  the  pri 
vate  man."  Individualism  was  the  axis  upon 
which  American  education  began  to  turn  and 
it  is  distinctively  prominent  in  the  latest  type 
of  institution.  In  his  first  address  to  the  mem 
bers  of  the  new  pioneer  class  of  Stanford,  the 
founder  said:  "You  are  the  most  important 
factor  in  this  university.  It  is  for  your  benefit 
that  Stanford  has  been  established."  We  would 
no  more  expect  to  see  in  America  a  prescribed  or 
set  nation-wide  policy  for  training  the  youth  than 
we  would  look  to  find  here  a  State  church.  The 
United  States  Bureau  of  Education  at  Washing 
ton,  where  the  Commissioner  of  Education,  a 
non-political  officer  of  the  Government,  collects 
and  analyzes  educational  data  and  statistics,  is 
only  the  advisory  agent  of  the  nation  engaged 
in  the  large  task  of  gathering  and  attempting 
to  standardize  and  bring  unity  from  a  vast 
output  of  modern  methods,  textbooks,  and  sub 
jects  found  in  the  various  types  of  school  admin 
istration  of  the  states.  His  work  is  not  by 
authority,  but  by  influence,  and  he  advises 
when  asked.  In  America  you  cannot  say,  as  it 
is  said  in  Germany,  that  if  you  can  find  out 


164  American  Ideals 

what  subject  the  pupils  are  studying  in  any 
given  school,  you  may  know  what  every  student 
of  the  Empire  is  studying  at  that  particular 
hour.  The  American  has  been  as  truly  a  non 
conformist  in  his  educational  ideals  as  in  his 
religion,  and  every  state  is  jealous  of  its  rights  in 
this  regard. 

The  educational  leaders  have  stood  for  an 
equality  of  opportunity  everywhere,  in  the  great 
state  universities  with  their  free  tuition  to  all 
the  youth  of  the  state  as  well  as  in  the  little 
free  school  of  the  country,  where  every  boy  and 
girl  of  whatever  station  or  nationality  learns  the 
three  R's  in  a  single  bare  room  filled  with  wooden 
benches.  The  American  has  suffered  no  heredi 
tary  or  contemporary  executive  authority  over 
his  instructional  life,  and  his  nation-wide  faith 
in  the  power  of  education  is  one  of  his  distinctive 
traits.  His  school  has  always  borne  the  words 
"free";  it  has  always  been  the  school  for  the 
individual. 

It  was  in  such  a  spirit  that  our  first  public 
schools  were  planted  on  Dutch,  English,  and 
Swiss  models  in  1621;  it  was  with  such  freedom 
that  Harvard  College,  springing  from  Emmanuel 
College  at  Cambridge,  England,  came  into  being 
in  1636.  The  sign  of  the  persistency  of  that 


Education  the  American  Passion       165 

liberty-loving  ideal,  rooted  so  early  in  the  soil 
of  New  England,  comes  out  to-day  in  many  a 
university  conflict  for  freedom  of  teaching,  as 
though  it  were  but  yesterday  that  it  was  enun 
ciated  by  our  Pilgrim  sires. 

America  owes  a  debt  to  her  ancestor  school 
teachers  because  of  the  fact  that  she  stands  to 
day  offering  the  promise  and  right  to  every  child 
in  the  land  to  become  educated,  not  as  a  nation 
wills,  but  as  his  own  inclination  and  aptitude 
determine. 

The  ideal  of  education  in  the  United  States 
has  thus  evolved  a  pronounced  practicality,  and 
its  slogan,  even  from  the  beginning,  has  been 
"fitting  for  life  work."  Its  aim  is  to  learn  to 
apply,  to  do  as  well  as  to  know.  The  modern 
sweep  of  this  ideal  has  carried  virtually  all 
before  it.  It  has  made  America  the  marked 
country  of  utilitarian  education. 

When  a  member  of  a  British  Commission 
came  here  some  years  ago  to  study  our  educa 
tion,  he  made  special  mention  in  his  report  of 
the  University  of  Wisconsin,  because,  he  said,  "it 
knits  together  the  professions  and  labors;  it 
makes  the  fine  arts  and  the  anvil  one." 

There  are  institutions  in  the  United  States, 
small  colleges  in  NewEngland  as  also  in  the  Mid- 


166  American  Ideals 

die  West,  high  schools  and  private  academies, 
moreover,  whose  liberally  educated  instructors 
are  like  the  present  Master  of  Winchester  in 
England,  who  said  recently  that  he  was  "holding 
on  to  the  classics  for  dear  life."  There  are  to  be 
found  here  and  there  both  teachers  and  whole 
schools  refusing  to  fall  into  line  with  the  utility 
ideal  of  training  which  is  running  strong  through 
out  the  country.  Nevertheless,  even  a  casual 
foreign  observer  realizes  that  the  education  as  a 
whole  lies  in  the  realm  of  the  contemporary 
affairs  of  the  nation,  in  making  "fine  arts  and 
the  anvil  one." 

Thus  the  America  of  the  present  has  added  to 
the  curriculum  of  the  English  forefathers,  who 
took  the  torch  of  learning  passing  down  from 
Milton,  the  English  Puritans,  and  the  line  of 
"lantern  bearers,"  from  Shakespeare, Beaumont, 
and  Fletcher  and  "rare  Ben  Jonson."  This 
Western  land  has  supplied  the  growing  wealth  of 
the  vast  near-to-life  scientific  world.  The  man 
of  high  ideals  in  education  to-day,  must  be  an 
investigator,  he  must  know  how  to  think  for 
himself  in  the  realm  of  scientific  research. 

The  ideal  of  the  multifold  types  of  education  is 
as  comprehensive  as  are  the  enterprises  of  the 
Commonwealth,  and  in  the  words  of  the  old 


Education  the  American  Passion       167 

Bishop  Comenius,  it  is  to  train  generally  all  who 
are  born  men  for  all  which  is  human  (he  might 
have  added  women  also).  At  one  of  our  oldest 
universities  where,  in  the  thought  of  one  of  the 
early  educators,  the  object  was  "to  make  his 
soul,"  where  every  boy  was  supposed  to  take  the 
same  studies  in  order  to  claim  at  the  end  of  his 
course  his  A.  B.  degree,  there  was  said  to  be 
offered  in  a  recent  year  but  one  subject,  English 
composition,  required  for  all  students;  if  a  youth 
should  try  to  take  all  the  courses  offered  by  this 
institution,  it  has  been  estimated  that  he  would 
need  to  live  in  college  for  two  hundred  years. 

The  educational  ideal  has  been  tremendously 
popularized  and  its  former  academic  character 
has  changed  through  the  knowledge  and  applica 
tion  of  the  natural  sciences  to  a  practical  end. 
Actual  life  is  the  end  and  aim,  and  the  life  to-day 
rather  than  life  in  the  Middle  Ages.  There  is  a 
general  belief  among  the  people  that  the  idea  of 
Professor  Agassiz,  that  a  speciality  is  the  back 
bone  of  an  education,  was  a  sane  one.  It  is  the 
feeling  that  a  man  becomes  competently  edu 
cated  by  knowing  how  to  do  well  some  one 
thing. 

An  educational  policy  that  would  be  popular 
in  an  English  institution  like  Eton  or  Oxford, 


i68  American  Ideals 

would  find  itself  sailing  very  slowly  against  a 
full  stream  of  industrial  modernity  in  America, 
and  quite  against  the  tide  of  public  opinion 
which  says:  "You  must  teach  my  boys  and 
girls  something  practical,  something  they  can 
use  in  their  future  vocations;  I  want  'bread  and 
butter'  studies  first,  then  if  there  is  time  they 
can  indulge  in  a  bit  of  philosophy  or  language." 
To  the  American  there  must  be  no  cut-off  be 
tween  the  counting-house  and  the  classroom, 
no  drop  curtain  between  the  family  of  the  home 
and  the  family  of  the  college.  Education  co 
alesces  in  life. 

A  prominent  weekly  printed  not  long  ago  an 
article  on  the  subject  "Culture  and  Agricul 
ture,"  and  the  plea  is  made  for  culture,  not  in  the 
terms  of  the  classics  or  historic  consciousness, 
but  in  behalf  of  the  ordinary  everyday  life: 

"But  my  plea,"  says  the  writer,  "is  for  culture  in 
colleges,  and  especially  in  agriculture  colleges.  Any 
college  has  the  clue  to  the  way  to  it.  Interest  is  the 
beginning — any  interest.  It  has  been  noticed  often 
that  graduate  students  who  loafed  through  their 
undergraduate  years,  woke  up  in  the  law  school  or 
the  medical  department  and  worked  with  interest 
and  ability.  Why  is  that?  The  answer  is  obvious. 
They  saw  the  relation  of  law  or  medicine  to  their 
life/' 


Education  the  American  Passion       169 

The  American  university  is  no  respecter  of 
persons.  Ezra  Cornell  sought  to  found  in 
Ithaca  an  institution  where  "any  person  could  j 
find  instruction  in  any  study."  The  motto  ^ 
seems  to  be  more  and  more  "no  favoritism  for 
any  study;  but  to  fit  the  needs  of  the  student 
applying!"  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  mind  of 
man  has  not  yet  conceived  subjects  related  to 
life  that  are  not  to-day  taught  somewhere  in 
the  schools  of  the  United  States.  Compre 
hension  rather  than  limitation  has  been  the 
ideal.  The  three  R's  have  verily  become  a 
legion,  and  twenty-five  different  subjects  are 
now  being  taught  in  the  public  schools  of  New 
York  City.  Like  the  accomodating  librarian, 
if  he  has  not  got  it  in  stock,  the  educator  will 
hospitably  order  it  by  first  post.  The  story  is 
told  of  a  very  much  up-to-date  college  president 
of  "unappeasable  energy,"  who  received  a  call 
at  his  office  from  a  young  man  who  wished  to 
study  Choctaw,  which  vanishing  language  was 
not  in  the  curriculum.  The  president  is  described 
as  saying  with  some  regret,  "I  am  sorry  that 
we  have  no  department  for  the  teaching  of 
Choctaw  this  morning,  but  if  you  will  call  around 
this  afternoon,  we  will  have  one  organized  for 
you." 


170  American  Ideals 

At  one  of  the  prominent  state  universities 
in  the  Middle  West,  twenty-five  students  were 
registered  during  the  last  college  year  in  the 
subject  of  horse-shoeing.  In  a  large  university 
of  multitudinous  departments,  where  the  col 
lege  catalogue  is  almost  as  bulky  as  an  un 
abridged  dictionary,  I  was  shown  about  the 
Dairy  Department  where  a  variety  of  work  was 
being  carried  on.  A  young  man  leading  a 
small  calf  into  the  stock-judging  lecture  room 
attracted  my  attention;  said  unwilling  calf  was 
undergoing  various  kinds  of  measurements 
and  minute  investigation  by  the  student.  Upon 
making  bold  to  ask  the  university  meaning  of 
this  procedure,  I  was  solemnly  told  by  the  pro 
fessor  in  a  perfect  matter-of-fact  tone  that  the 
student  was  " doing  original  work  on  the  calf." 
This  undergraduate,  in  fact,  was  writing  his 
graduating  thesis  on  the  subject  of  "Calf 
Evolution,"  and  the  youth,  who  was  going  to  be 
an  expert  dairyman,  having  weighed,  measured, 
and  otherwise  researched  this  calf  twice  daily 
since  the  animal  was  born,  probably  knew  more 
(as  I  was  told)  about  real  calf  nature  than  any 
man  who  had  ever  studied  in  this  department. 

Our  common  schools  nre  becoming  Garyized, 
our  high  schools  vocationalized,  and  our  colleges 


Education  the  American  Passion       171 

humanized  after  a  fashion  that  neither  the  old 
nor  new  humanists  would  have  quite  under 
stood.  The  trades  of  yesterday  have  become 
the  learned  professions  and  callings  of  to-day. 
Applied  science  like  applied  Christianity  has 
changed  the  nation's  needs,  and  with  its  changed 
requirements  there  has  come  a  new  set  of  ideals. 
The  professor  is  no  longer  the  dreamy,  spectacled 
don,  lost  in  his  quiet  and  delightful  speculative 
studies  of  theories  and  literary  excellence;  he  is 
to-day  forming  the  new  twentieth-century  ideal 
ism  as  an  expert  scientific  or  industrial  engi 
neer,  or  a  government-assisting  forester,  a  land 
expert,  a  practical  mining  specialist,  or  an  engi 
neer  of  efficiency. 

Schools  and  departments  for  business  admin 
istration,  for  journalism,  architecture,  household 
and  domestic  economy,  agriculture,  scien 
tific  education,  and  a  score  of  specialties  of 
which  our  forefathers  scarcely  dreamed  in  that 
small  Mayflower  company  of  forty-one  in  the 
year  1620,  have  arisen  in  the  ever-enlarging 
field  of  modern  knowledge.  These  have  helped 
to  alter,  not  only  the  method  of  training,  but 
also  the  spirit  of  American  educational  ideals. 

Even  the  older  and  the  traditional  subjects 
like  law,  theology,  medicine,  and  the  philoso- 


172  American  Ideals 

phies,  have  come  under  the  new  scientific 
generalizing  processes,  and  if  they  have  lost 
in  the  realm  of  the  theoretic,  the  mystical,  and 
the  literary,  they  have  gained  immensely  in  the 
field  of  the  useful,  the  accurate,  and  the  im 
mediately  serviceable. 

There  are  some  who  hold  that  in  this  transfer 
from  the  deductive  to  the  inductive  methods  of 
education,  we  have  become  more  and  not  less 
ideal,  that  research  and  scientific  investigations 
of  the  laboratory,  the  field  and  the  counting- 
house,  are  often  "with  no  ulterior  practical 
purpose/*  We  are  told  that  the  vast  number 
of  expert  teachers  of  the  new  learning,  who  are 
spending  laborious  days  and  nights  in  devoted 
experimentation,  with  thought  of  nought  save 
their  interest  in  new  discovery,  are  helping  to 
leaven  and  idealize  the  whole  lump  of  modern 
scientific  learning.  We  hear  that  there  is  as 
much  real  idealism  in  the  effort  to  make  a 
perfect  cow  as  in  creating  a  winged  Mercury. 
This  new  scientific  idealism,  is  in  any  case  one 
of  the  most  significant  and  far-reaching  in 
fluences  to  be  noted  on  the  educational  horizon 
in  any  part  of  the  world  at  the  present  time. 
Its  influence  has  long  since  left  America  to 
sweep,  by  the  power  of  its  example,  around 


Education  the  American  Passion       173 

the  entire  earth.  The  Egyptian  government 
students  surveying  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  the 
young  East  Indian  agriculturists  carrying  out 
the  principles  of  knowledge  and  method  learned 
in  our  state  universities,  as  well  as  the  Far  East 
ern  youth,  in  China  especially,  who  are  carrying 
back  the  models  of  our  scientific  training  for 
their  new  systems  of  education,  have  all  felt 
the  wave  of  this  practical  pulsation. 

But  with  all  our  successes  in  the  education 
that  fits  the  hand  to  the  work  of  the  moment, 
there  have  come  insidious  dangers  in  the  realm 
of  the  student's  ideas  of  mental  and  spiritual 
progress.  He  has  gained  much  over  his  fore 
fathers  in  the  machinery  of  effective  educational 
action;  he  has  lost  something  in  the  region  of  his 
soul. 

Educational  ideals,  like  all  other  things  in  the 
higher  realm  of  men's  thinking,  cling  about 
personalities  quite  as  truly  as  they  associate 
themselves  with  principles,  and  in  the  school 
realm  it  is  the  personality  of  the  teacher  that 
marks  the  turning-point  in  all  education.  In 
one  of  the  Hindu  sacred  books  it  is  asked,  "Who 
are  the  keepers  of  the  city  ? "  The  answer  comes 
"The  teachers!"  The  crossroads  of  school 
existence  are  at  a  point  where  education  that 


174  American  Ideals 

trains  the  youth  for  making  a  living  joins  with 
the  path  that  trains  the  student  for  making  a 
life.  There  is  a  difference  between  greatness 
in  engineering  and  greatness  that  is  of  the 
mind,  the  character,  and  the  spirit.  True  edu 
cation  comes  from  within  out — not  vice  versa. 
Education  should  have  an  ideal  and  a  system 
for  the  development  of  trained  and  skilful  arti 
sans;  it  should  not  forget  its  ideals  and  its 
system  for  the  development  of  the  individual 
as  a  man. 

The  educators  of  America  are  already  realiz 
ing  that  their  task  is  only  half  done  when  they 
have  vocationalized  their  system;  it  now  must 
be  spiritualized.  The  school  must  be  the 
temple  of  the  spirit,  or  its  books,  its  useful 
curricula,  and  highly  developed  play,  jangle 
hopelessly  in  a  confused  utilitarian  universe. 
Every  child  cometh  from  afar.  He  brings  with 
him  the  infinitude  of  possibilities  in  the  realm  of 
fellowship,  reverence,  imitation,  purity,  and  the 
romance  of  youth.  Pitiful  is  the  teacher  who 
forgets  spiritual  culture  and  who  leaves  that 
ministry  to  the  clergyman.  He  has  lost  his 
main  chance  at  changing  life  who  fails  to  re 
member  the  individual  in  the  crowd.  It  is  the 
faculty  that  makes  or  mars  the  university,  and 


Education  the  American  Passion       175 

Dr.  Gilman  of  Johns  Hopkins  was  right  when  he 
sought  for  his  institution  "men,  not  buildings!" 
The  teacher  who  has  not  become  internally 
conscious  of  the  deeper  needs  of  the  student  as 
a  human  being  fails  even  when  he  seems  to  suc 
ceed,  and  his  pupils  will  bear  the  mark  of  his 
incompetency. 

I  attended  recently  a  meeting  of  schoolmas 
ters  where  one  of  the  teachers  spoke  on  the  topic, 
"The  Damage  We  Do  as  Teachers."  He  quoted 
.the  dialogue  between  Socrates  and  Protagoras 
in  which  Socrates  says  in  substance  that  it  is  a 
serious  thing  when  one  goes  to  get  instruction. 
You  can  go  to  the  market  and  buy  a  fish,  he 
contends,  and  take  it  home  with  you.  If  you 
find  it  is  bad,  you  can  throw  it  away;  but  if  you 
go  to  get  instruction  and  find  after  you  get  it 
that  it  is  bad,  you  can't  get  rid  of  it.  You 
must  keep  it,  since  it  has  become  a  real  part  of 
you. 

There  is  a  growing  consensus  of  opinion  that 
much  of  the  failure  of  our  schools  and  colleges 
is  due  to  the  failure  of  the  teacher,  a  failure  often 
to  grasp  with  vividness  and  with  earnestness 
his  distinctive  task. 

The  ideals  of  the  teacher  are  twofold.  First 
of  all  it  is  the  teacher's  vocation  to  see  that  the 


176  American  Ideals 

student  works  in  the  realm  of  ideas  as  well  as 
within  the  region  of  his  vocational  tools.  The 
average  American  boy  comes  up  to  the  prepara 
tory  school,  flabby  in  power  of  will,  procrastinat 
ing,  inaccurate,  frequently  with  slovenly  habits, 
and  a  past  master  in  the  fine  art  of  wasting  time. 
The  school  and  the  college  are  handicapped  at 
the  start  in  their  material.  They  are  weakened 
by  the  weakness  of  moral  and  spiritual  discipline 
in  the  American  home.  "I  expect  nothing  of 
the  next  generation  of  students,"  said  one  of  our 
well-known  but  somewhat  despairful  public 
men,  "  for  they  have  no  patience  and  no  persever 


ance." 


The  modern  youth  in  America  is  inclined  to 
be  easy  going;  he  has  not  learned  to  obey.  It 
is  no  small  favor  to  such  an  youth  to  make  him 
work  under  discipline  for  four  or  eight  years — a 
discipline  that  inures  him  to  courage  and  promp 
titude  in  attacking  a  hard  job. 

English  schools  accomplish  much  in  this  line 
and  English  schoolmasters  should  be  studied 
by  American  teachers.  In  the  preparatory  and 
public  schools  especially,  there  is  no  babying, 
no  soft  measures — the  boy  is  supposed  to  learn 
endurance,  fortitude,  and  the  power  to  overcome 
obstacles.  It  is  this  ability  of  the  masters  of 


Education  the  American  Passion       177 

these  English  schools  like  Winchester  and 
Rugby  to  inculcate  a  spirit  of  disregard  for 
circumstances  and  untoward  environment,  that 
has  connected  British  colonization  with  the 
playing-grounds  and  the  "forms"  of  public-school 
boys  in  the  British  Empire.  It  is  this  spirit 
that  Henry  Newbolt  has  caught  so  perfectly  in 
his  poem  "Vitae  Lampada"  when  he  says: 

And  it's  not  for  the  sake  of  a  ribboned  coat 
Or  the  selfish  hope  of  a  season's  fame, 

But  his  Captain's  hand  on  his  shoulder  smote 
"  Play  up!  Play  up!  and  play  the  game! " 

One  hears  at  Eton  the  story  of  Doctor  Keate, 
the  famous  head  master,  who  one  day  met  a 
new  boy  in  the  schoolyard,  and  finding  the  lad 
crying,  asked  him  what  was  the  matter.  "I  am 
cold,"  said  the  boy;  at  which  the  master  an 
swered,  "You  must  put  up  with  cold,  sir! 
This  is  no  girl's  school."  Fifteen  years  later 
this  boy  was  with  the  Third  Dragoons  in  India 
charging  at  the  Sikhs,  the  best  fighting  men  of 
the  Khalsa.  The  Sikhs  were  entrenched  in  a 
well-nigh  impregnable  position,  and  as  the  order 
came  to  charge,  the  old  Eton  boy  turned  to  his 
superior  officer,  who  was  also  a  graduate  of  the 
school  on  the  Thames,  and  said,  "As  old  Keate 
would  say,  this  is  no  girl's  school!"  with  which 


178  American  Ideals 

remark  he  rode  to  his  death  in  that  memorable 
charge  of  the  battle  of  Sobraon  that  gave  Lahore 
to  England. 

There  is  certain  truth  in  the  saying  of  an 
American  educator  that  the  direct  product  of 
English  schools  is  a  little  indifferent  Latin  verse, 
but  the  by-products  are  the  men  who  run  the 
Indian  Empire.  As  a  Frenchman  put  it, 
"culture  is  what  remains  after  we  have  forgotten 
what  we  have  learned."  In  England  this  spirit 
that  never  says  die  is  not  as  thoroughly  asso 
ciated  with  intellectual  endeavor  in  the  schools 
as  it  might  be,  but  as  a  force  for  a  fortification 
of  the  will  and  as  a  guide  for  a  teaching  ministry, 
it  commands  tremendous  respect.  After  all, 
what  is  education  ?  Is  it  not  the  training  of  the 
will,  to  help  it  choose  right  voluntarily  and 
without  exterior  compulsion,  making  the  will 
proficient  in  work?  Of  what  good  is  scientific 
training  or  any  other  kind  of  training  for  the 
mind  that  does  not  somehow  impart  with  its 
precepts  the  faculty  that  gets  these  precepts 
accomplished?  Education  is  merely  a  pretty 
idealism  or  a  passing  commercialism  without  the 
"will  push."  Thomas  Huxley  gave  an  immortal 
definition  of  education  when  he  called  it  the 
ability  to  make  a  man  do  the  thing  he  ought  to 


Education  the  American  Passion       179 

do  when  it  ought  to  be  done,  whether  he  felt 
like  doing  it  or  not. 

It  is  a  grave  question  as  to  whether  our  ideals 
for  teaching  and  training  students  are  intellec 
tually  high  enough.  Are  we  preparing  in  the 
midst  of  all  of  our  utilitarian  study  for  the  far- 
sighted  and  vast  hungry  intellectual  wants  that 
are  already  beginning  to  show  themselves  in  the 
wake  of  our  prodigious  industrial  prosperity? 
We  are  already  seeing  the  turning  of  the  tide 
in  the  attitude  of  our  self-made  men  of  yesterday, 
who  are  eager  to  send  their  sons  and  daughters 
to  college  to  be  the  educated  people  of  to-morrow. 
Are  we  considering  our  obligations  to  raise  them 
up  to  citizenship,  filled  with  lofty  idealism  for  the 
new  civilization  of  the  New  Freedom  which, 
although  now  it  seems  to  be  a  distant  spectre 
with  the  din  of  European  battle  in  our  ears, 
is  surely  coming  in  the  new  bright  day  of  larger 
knowledge  and  more  perfect  intellectual  and 
spiritual  vision! 

Our  elective  systems  and  great  free  trade 
routes  of  education,  our  early  specializing  upon 
things  that  happen  to  be  the  most  locally  in 
teresting  to  students,  our  extending  areas  of 
play  and  social  amusement,  with  the  multitude 
of  novelties  and  fads,  ranging  through  the  whole 


180  American  Ideals 

gamut  from  hygiene  and  Montessori  to  eugenics 
and  schools  for  automobiling — all  these  combine 
to  make  school  life  in  the  words  of  a  certain 
educator  "just  one  big  game"-— a  contemporary 
dust  storm  of  innumerable  activities  if  we  forget 
the  larger  emphasis  upon  the  training  of  the 
mind  and  the  will.  We  give  the  impression  of 
school  days  and  college  a  trivial  and  jovial  note. 
The  very  repetition  of  the  phrase  "college  boy" 
is  to  smile.  We  make  it  a  four  years'  sentimental 
journey  before  the  real  work  of  life  begins.  But 
college  life  is  not  preparation  merely;  it  is  life. 
The  careers  of  our  boys  begin  and  get  their  per 
manent  bent  during  these  days.  The  youth 
obtains  his  mental  and  moral  habits  in  prepara 
tory  school  and  in  the  university.  His  student 
enthusiasms,  his  love  of  traditions,  and  that 
which  he  calls  his  college  spirit,  may  be  lost  later 
through  his  geographical  or  vocational  business 
of  life,  but  his  habits  persist.  Was  it  not  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  who  said,  "Habit  is  ten 
times  nature"?  Habits  of  persistent  work 
should  be  encouraged  and  insisted  upon  in  the 
daily  routine,  not  left  to  spasmodic  dashes  just 
previous  to  examination,  because  these  habits 
persist  in  the  man  and  are  carried  over  into 
every  phase  of  his  succeeding  life. 


Education  the  American  Passion       181 

In  the  United  States  we  have  only  two  insti 
tutions  that  really  give  disciplinarian  training 
for  hard  work  equal  to  that  which  the  youth  is 
to  experience  in  the  competitive  struggles  in  the 
world.  These  two  institutions  are  the  Military 
and  Naval  Academies  at  West  Point  and  Annap 
olis. 

Some  years  ago  I  was  the  guest  of  the  late 
Col.  Charles  Lamed,  Dean  of  the  West  Point 
faculty,  a  man  who  could  teach  his  specialty 
and  also  could  perceive  the  significance  of  that 
specialty  as  a  means  for  training  the  will  to 
work.  We  were  speaking  of  this  matter  of  in 
tellectual  work  as  we  sat  looking  at  that  match 
less  discipline  revealed  in  the  West  Point  dress 
parade  on  Sunday  afternoon,  when  Colonel 
Larned  said,  "We  are  tightening  up  the  curricu 
lum.  The  boys  have  too  much  spare  time.  Our 
root  principle  of  education  here  is  to  keep  the 
men  every  minute  at  something."  I  had  just 
been  talking  with  a  cadet  who  told  me  that 
even  before  this  "tightening"  in  the  curriculum 
he  had  less  than  an  hour  a  day  to  himself. 

Such  discipline,  to  be  sure,  weeds  out  the  weak 
and  the  undesirable.  It  makes  education  the 
survival  of  the  fittest  in  the  realm  of  the  self- 
reliant  will.  Not  every  boy  can  endure  physi- 


1 82  American  Ideals 

cally  or  mentally  the  strain  of  such  discipline, 
but  where  one  boy  is  lost  to  education  by  over 
work,  a  score  fall  out  by  reason  of  easy-going 
habits,  by  undue  indulgence,  or  by  doing  noth 
ing.  Bismarck  said  that  one  third  of  Germany's 
students  dropped  out  of  the  race  because  of 
dissipation,  one  third  by  reason  of  overwork, 
while  the  other  third  ruled  Germany.  In  the 
United  States  we  find  to-day  no  such  percentage 
of  students  failing  because  of  overwork.  Even 
the  college  jibes  against  "grinds"  and  "book 
sharks"  are  passing  into  desuetude  because  of 
the  absence  of  examples.  As  I  recall  my  own 
experience  in  college,  the  severe  obligation  of 
hard  study  did  not  impress  me,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  I  was  one  of  the  many  American  youths 
who  are  obliged  to  "work  their  way  through 
college,"  which  necessarily  subtracts  considera 
ble  time  from  the  hours  which  should  be  given 
to  study.  I  do  not  remember  any  memorable 
struggle  to  pass  examinations,  but  I  do  recall 
one  or  two  courses  that  really  left  their  mark 
upon  me  because  the  teacher  went  upon  the 
principle  that  effort  is  in  itself  the  vital  part  in 
education.  An  educational  authority  who  made 
a  considerable  study  or  this  matter  of  required 
work,  makes  the  astounding  statement  that  "the 


Education  the  American  Passion       183 

average  amount  of  work  done  by  an  undergradu 
ate  in  a  course  is  less  than  three  and  a  half 
hours  a  week  outside  the  lecture  room;  more 
than  half  the  answers  from  which  these  results 
are  derived  came  from  men  who  obtained  the 
grade  of  A  and  B  (highest  grades). "  The  vir 
tually  unanimous  opinion,  based  upon  observa 
tion  and  judgment  of  men  who  have  closely 
studied  this  subject  in  America,  is  to  the  effect 
that  the  college  graduate,  whatever  else  he 
may  gain  from  his  student  days,  is  turned 
out  lacking  in  concentration,  seriousness,  and 
thoroughness,  and  only  "settling  down"  as  a 
trained  and  earnest  worker  when  he  gets  into 
the  professional  school. 

To  instil  into  the  student  consciousness  the 
sense  of  hard  intellectual  effort,  the  effort  with 
out  which  there  is  small  joy  of  achievement,  the 
effort  that  Professor  James  called  "oxygen  to  the 
lungs  of  youth" — this  is  the  teacher's  task. 

The  other  all-inclusive  and  even  greater  task 
of  the  teacher  is  the  arousal  and  development  in 
his  students  of  the  life  of  the  spirit. 

Prof.  Henri  Bergson  in  outlining  his  philos 
ophy  maintains  that  philosophy  will  not  be 
come  a  serious  matter  until  it  has  done  away 
completely  with  the  method  of  dogmatic  philo- 


184  American  Ideals 

sophical  systems  and  has  devoted  itself  to  ob 
servation  and  experience,  "not  merely  the 
observation  and  experience  of  the  outer  world, 
but  of  the  inner  world  as  well."  Professor  Berg- 
son  also  speaks  of  this  inner  experience  as 
religious  feeling,  "the  sense  of  not  being  alone  in 
this  world,  the  sense  of  a  relationship  between 
the  individual  and  the  spiritual  source  of  life." 

It  is  difficult  to  use  this  word  "spiritual" 
as  applied  to  the  teacher  and  his  teaching  be 
cause  of  the  connotation  the  word  has  received 
through  our  early  association  with  exercises 
and  customs  of  formal  religious  training.  The 
teacher  in  America,  moreover,  has  been  as 
sisted  in  a  measure  to  omit  his  responsibility 
to  the  spiritual  side  of  student  life  by  the  laws 
of  the  land.  These  laws  are  nowhere  more 
strictly  upheld  than  in  their  prohibition  of  any 
religious  teaching  in  connection  with  the  public- 
school  program.  Not  even  is  it  permitted  to 
study  the  book  generally  conceded  to  be  the 
most  universally  accepted  model  of  English, 
the  book  which,  more  than  any  other  literature, 
has  shaped  the  life  and  character  of  the  great 
men  of  the  world.  As  a  consequence  the  Bible 
is  an  undiscovered  literature  for  the  average 
modern  student.  As  one  college  president 


Education  the  American  Passion       185 

put  it,  the  teacher  must  leave  his  religion  in  the 
coatroom  with  his  overcoat  and  rubbers,  while 
the  students  are  left  to  drink  of  the  water  of 
life  outside  of  the  classroom  from  sanitary 
drinking  cups. 

This  is  especially  unfortunate,  not  only  be 
cause  it  relieves  the  teacher,  already  weighed 
down  with  many  tasks  of  lesser  importance, 
from  the  feeling  of  responsibility  for  the  deeper 
life  of  the  student;  but  it  also  prevents  the 
teacher  from  becoming  a  vital  interpreter  for 
our  youth  between  science  and  religion.  Al 
though  science  has  now  gained  the  educational 
field,  it  is  questionable  whether  in  its  rigid 
experimentation,  its  cold  logic  and  bigotry  oft- 
times,  it  is  more  to  be  desired  as  a  means  of 
interpreting  the  inner  life  than  was  its  oppo 
nent,  dogmatic  theology,  or  its  medieval  fore 
runner,  philosophical  speculation.  The  teacher's 
opportunity  and  in  some  respects  his  most 
divine  task  lies  in  the  presentation,  through  his 
own  personality  and  teaching,  of  the  essential 
truths  of  the  spiritual  world. 

A  teacher  of  Columbia  University  has  said 
that  this  task  signifies  "the  falling  in  love  with 
imaginary  things  and  living  in  dreams."  Ba 
con's  phrase  as  applied  to  the  teacher  is:  "one 


1 86  American  Ideals 

whose  mind  moves  in  charity,  and  turns  upon 
the  poles  of  truth."  William  James,  when 
speaking  at  one  time  to  teachers,  quoted  Touch 
stone's  question,  "Hast  any  philosophy  in  thee, 
Shepherd?"  Continuing,  Professor  James  said 
that  a  man  with  no  philosophy  in  him  is  the 
most  inauspicious  and  unprofitable  of  all  social 
mates.  It  was  Dr.  Francis  Peabody  who  main 
tained  that  the  most  difficult  thing  an  American 
student  could  do  would  be  to  go  through  college 
and  keep  his  soul  alive,  while  a  graduate  of  one 
of  our  New  England  universities  has  made 
confession  as  follows:  "We  shall  be  bound 
together  only  by  digging  deeper  into  our  own 
spiritual  selves  and  discovering  that  true  kin 
ship  with  the  deeper  selves  of  others." 

It  is  this  rich  inner  spiritual  life  of  the  teacher, 
this  utter  devotion  to  Truth,  that  most  capti 
vates  students  and  carries  them  past  the  teacher 
to  the  thing  taught.  Pity  the  instructor  whose 
students  stop  with  him!  Pity  the  investigator 
who  cannot  impart  to  his  learners  the  ideal  of 
his  power!  I  knew  of  a  teacher  in  a  West 
ern  university  whose  lecture-room  was  always 
crowded  with  eager  young  men.  Quite  often 
these  youths  would  brecik  into  spontaneous  and 
sincere  applause  at  the  end  of  his  lecture.  A 


Education  the  American  Passion       187 

few  years  ago  I  met  this  professor  as  he  was 
coming  out  from  his  classroom.  He  was  like 
one  of  other  days  who  came  down  from  the 
mountain  with  the  skin  of  his  face  shining:  his 
countenance  was  fairly  radiant  by  the  passage 
of  the  spirit  that  had  gone  out  of  him.  The 
spiritual  side  of  youth,  its  rich  feeling,  its  nat 
ural  seriousness,  its  depth  of  religious  possibil 
ity,  its  ever-present  idealism,  had  reflected  and 
taken  possession  of  this  teacher.  He  taught  by 
what  he  felt  and  what  he  was,  as  well  as  by 
what  he  knew.  One  student  described  him 
thus,  "I  don't  remember  anything  he  said,  but 
I  remember  him."  From  one  hundred  college 
graduates  who  were  asked  the  chief  benefit  re 
ceived  from  their  college  or  university  course, 
eighty-nine  placed  first  in  their  reply  the  in 
fluence  of  one  or  more  teachers. 

There  is  a  true  sense  in  which  the  teachers  in 
our  schools  are  the  best  idealizing  element  in  the 
United  States  to-day.  As  a  rule  they  are  char 
acterized  by  extraordinary  self-forgetfulness, 
and  there  is  no  small  scorning  of  delights  and 
living  laborious  days.  No  one  of  them  who  has 
really  the  right  to  this  term  teacher  has  been 
without  the  sensation  of  imparting  this  spiritual 
quality  to  his  students,  and  this  has  kept  him 


1 88  American  Ideals 

alive.  It  has  buoyed  him  up  and  given  him  the 
assurance,  as  one  professor  has  said,  that  time 
is  on  his  side.  Although  the  nation  has  been 
slow  to  recognize  the  inherent  greatness  of 
schoolmastering  in  this  country,  as  compared 
with  the  attitude  of  the  people  in  Europe  and 
in  Japan,  there  are  signs  of  awakening  to  the 
realization  that  the  scholar  and  the  investigator, 
who  rank  with  the  nobles  of  the  earth,  should 
be  given  opportunity  of  the  highest  and  widest 
scope  to  fulfil  their  ideal  mission.  That  the 
profession  of  the  teacher  has  received  a  new 
standing  in  the  United  States  in  the  person  of 
Woodrow  Wilson,  our  "Schoolmaster  Presi 
dent,"  is  past  denial. 

The  word  "veritas"  may  be  written  across 
the  shields  of  our  colleges,  or  it  may  be  carved 
in  the  marble  and  granite  of  great  laboratories; 
it  may  be  worked  upon  the  fraternal  emblems 
of  our  student  societies;  it  may  be  studied  for 
its  metaphysical  and  ethical  qualities  in  the  de 
partments  of  philosophy,  or  it  may  be  preached 
about  in  college  chapels;  but  if  it  is  not  incor 
porated  and  vitally  embodied  in  the  deep,  ear 
nest  spiritual  life  of  the  teacher  who  goes  daily 
in  and  out  before  his  pupils,  it  usually  fails  to 
take  permanent  hold  of  the  student's  inner  life. 


Education  the  American  Passion       189 

Truth  indeed  is  the  hand  by  which  men  take 
hold  of  God,  but  the  hand  is  invisible  until  it  is 
revealed  by  one  who  has  already  clasped  it.  The 
question  of  education  is  at  heart  a  spiritual 
question,  the  question  first  of  all  of  the  quality 
of  the  teacher,  who  himself  is  spiritual,  who  has 
seen  the  gleam  of  ideal  Truth.  Like  one  who 
was  called  "Great  Teacher,"  he  succeeds,  not 
by  carrying  a  shining  light,  but  by  being  one. 


CHAPTER  VII 
IDEALS  IN  RELIGION 

To  love  God  and  make  one's  self  loved  by  Him,  to 
love  one's  neighbors  and  to  make  one's  self  loved  by 
them — this  is  morality  and  religion;  in  both  the  one 
and  the  other,  love  is  everything — end,  beginning, 
and  middle. 

JOUBERT. 


CHAPTER  VII 
IDEALS  IN  RELIGION 

IN  THE  course  of  a  recent  conversation  with  an 
editorial  writer  of  wide  experience  and  perspec 
tive,  relative  to  ideals  and  the  forces  with  which 
to  accomplish  them,  I  asked,  "What  do  you 
think  of  the  church  as  a  present-day  agency  in 
behalf  of  religious  ideals?"  "The  church?" 
said  he  with  unfeigned  surprise,  "it  is  futile — 
its  power  is  virtually  gone.  It  cannot  rein 
state  itself  in  its  present  form.  The  only  great 
moulding  forces  to-day  in  America  are  the  news 
papers  and  the  banks,  and  these  are  either  too 
self-centred  or  too  thoroughly  controlled  from 
outside  to  be  able  to  meet  the  deeper  considera 
tions  and  emergencies  of  the  nation." 

From  this  opinion  many  will  differ.  It  will 
be  called,  and  justly  so,  we  believe,  the  view  of 
an  extremist  who  was  not  thoroughly  aware  of 
the  tremendously  vital  work  the  church  is 
doing  in  the  United  States  against  many  odds, 
and  in  a  period  of  decided  transition  from  the  old 

193 


194  American  Ideals 

forms  to  those  more  nearly  consonant  with  the 
life  of  a  changed  republic.  But  while  this  opin 
ion  is  not  usually  so  broadly  and  nakedly  stated, 
it  is  more  generally  accepted,  unconsciously  if 
not  consciously,  among  a  large  circle  of  American 
men  of  affairs,  than  we  sometimes  appreciate. 
The  inadequacy  of  the  church  is  especially  felt 
when  the  question  is  raised  whether  the  Chris 
tian  faith  is  indispensable  as  a  saving  force  or 
as  an  adequate  requirement  for  personal  guid 
ance.  Hardly  a  month  passes  that  some  of  the 
magazines  fail  to  publish  articles  by  writers  who 
take  substantially  the  position  that  the  church 
has  collapsed  as  a  means  for  imparting  dynamics 
to  the  thoughtful  and  influential  classes  in  the 
United  States. 

One  finds,  indeed,  though  not  so  commonly 
save  in  special  coteries  in  the  large  cities,  a 
class  of  ultra-liberals  with  more  or  less  extreme 
socialistic  tendencies,  who  speak  of  the  inade 
quacy  of  religion  in  general  much  as  one  would 
refer  to  the  exploded  subject  of  sea  gold  or  witch 
burning — something  too  utterly  old-fashioned 
and  out-of-date  to  merit  even  thoughtful  con 
sideration.  Even  the  younger  clergy  in  certain 
sections  reveal  not  orJy  a  disbelief  in  the  old 
forms  of  theology  and  the  "chains  of  creeds"  as 


Ideals  in  Religion  195 

Whittier  called  them,  but  if  one  may  judge  by 
the  things  that  engage  their  enthusiastic  atten 
tion,  they  have  lost  considerable  of  their  depend 
ence  upon  the  religion  of  our  forefathers  as  a 
means  for  spiritual  and  supernatural  regeneration 
of  the  individual.  A  Southern  bishop  not  long 
ago  characterized  a  certain  young  clergyman  in 
his  diocese  as  preaching  somewhat  as  follows: 
"Dearly  beloved!  You  must  repent — as  it 
were,  and  be  converted — in  a  measure;  or  be 
damned — to  a  certain  extent." 

Outside  of  the  circle  of  persons  immediately 
engaged  in  strictly  "church  work,"  or  listed 
among  the  professional  and  official  religionists, 
the  tendency  is  to  regard  formalized  religious 
faith  as  exemplified  in  the  Protestant,  Catholic, 
or  Jewish  orders  in  church,  cathedral,  or  syna 
gogue,  as  good  enough  for  those  people  who 
want  it,  but  not  vitally  necessary  for  the  average 
enterprising  American  on  his  busy  way  to  suc 
cess,  and  each  year  less  prone  to  demonstrate  his 
religious  ideals  by  either  ecclesiastical  or  emo 
tional  exercises,  far  less  in  the  form  of  dogma. 
The  tendency  is  to  pour  out  idealism  rather  in 
the  various  forms  of  public  service  and  the 
activities  associated  with  family  existence — 
devotion  to  friends,  charity,  and  standards  of 


196  American  Ideals 

moral  rectitude,  without  associating  these  with 
any  particularly  religious  meaning.  The  second 
commandment  of  neighborliness  has  become 
more  popular  as  an  ideal  than  the  first  great 
commandment  of  godliness.  In  a  sense  the 
American  has  exchanged  the  doctrine  of  his 
fathers  for  a  principle  of  practical  conduct  which 
he  finds  to-day  the  best  policy,  which  is  decid 
edly  ethical  but  not  consciously  religious. 

The  average  citizen  will  tell  you  that  religion 
is  by  no  means  non-existent  in  America,  and  his 
explanation  resembles  the  statement  of  a  certain 
college  president,  who  said  on  behalf  of  his 
university,  which  had  been  criticised  for  some 
irreligious  or  liberal  tendencies,  that  there 
never  was  a  time  when  the  men  of  his  institution 
were  more  deeply  religious  than  at  the  present 
moment,  even  if  they  talked  less  about  it  than 
did  the  men  of  a  former  generation. 

One  also  hears  frequently  that  it  is  not  a 
question  of  the  universality  of  the  existence 
of  religious  ideals  in  America  at  present  which 
is  of  chief  concern,  but  rather  the  mode  of 
their  expression.  A  new  set  of  accessories  are 
needed  more  truly  in  keeping  with  the  modern 
mood.  There  is  less  need  of  rules  of  prohibition 
as  to  what  a  man  must  or  must  not  do  to 


Ideals  in  Religion  197 

be  a  Christian,  and  more  need  of  a  man  exhibit 
ing  throughout  the  whole  texture  of  his  life 
the  spirit  of  Jesus.  We  demand  a  different 
stage  scenery  to  fit  our  twentieth-century  relig 
ious  drama  to  that  which  was  the  accom 
paniment  of  our  fathers'  faith.  Where  the 
men  of  the  last  generation  said  "doctrine,"  we 
say  "service."  Where  they  talked  about  the 
future  and  this  life  as  a  preparatory  period  sim 
ply  for  another  wrorld  awaiting  the  soul  with 
variegated  rewards  and  punishments,  we  talk 
about  the  present,  and  are  chiefly  interested  in 
making  the  world  of  the  moment  the  best  possi 
ble  for  every  one,  getting  out  of  it  all  that  we 
can  with  comparatively  little  concern  or  thought 
for  another  life,  regarding  which  it  is  quite  gen 
erally  conceded  we  have  little  or  no  authoritative 
evidence  or  experience  to  guide  us  to  safe  con 
clusions.  In  other  words,  the  religion  of  the 
present  is  quite  disengaged  from  the  divine 
path  of  theological  doctrine  which  was  the  fore 
most  consideration  fifty  years  ago  in  America. 
The  country  no  longer  languishes  under  the 
restraint  of  old  fears  or  is  it  frightened  at  being 
shaken  over  hell,  according  to  the  mode  of 
Jonathan  Edwards.  There  is  a  sense  of  being  to 
a  large  degree  the  architect  of  one's  own  fortune. 


198  American  Ideals 

Prejudice,  especially  religious  prejudice,  is  one 
of  the  surest  marks  of  failure  or  weakness. 
Missionary  or  professional  accounts  of  religion 
are  taken  with  a  grain  of  salt,  allowance 
being  made  for  a  bias  which  somewhat  negates 
the  conclusions.  "In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
writer  is  a  missionary,"  begins  a  recent  review 
of  a  really  great  book,  "he  shows  a  creditable 
breadth  of  treatment  and  a  real  sympathy  with 
other  religions/'  The  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
nine  different  religious  denominations,  by  their 
very  multiplicity,  have  thrown  suspicion  upon 
the  unifying  and  standardizing  force  of  authori 
tative  and  official  religion. 

There  is,  moreover,  a  decided  growth  in  relig 
ious  tolerance  in  the  United  States.  It  would 
be  expected  by  any  one  who  knew  the  early 
history  of  America  that  in  the  matter  of  religion 
especially  the  freedom  principle  would  be  opera 
tive,  the  New  England  anachronisms  of  witch 
burning  and  more  recent  heresy  trials  notwith 
standing.  The  Constitution  of  the  country,  in 
Article  VI,  forbids  any  religious  test  as  a  qualifi 
cation  for  office,  while  the  first  amendment  pro 
hibits  Congress  from  making  any  law  respecting 
an  establishment  of  reiigion  or  prohibitory  to 
the  free  exercise  thereof.  At  least  three  fourths 


/  b  ^^ 

Ideals  in  Religion  199 

of  the  constitutions  of  the  various  states  prohibit 
the  use  of  taxpayer's  funds  given  for  the  support 
of  public  schools  to  be  used  to  promote  denom 
inational  institutions,  or  for  sectarian  instruction 
in  the  schools  of  the  land.  One  finds  that  few 
tenets  are  more  universally  and  unconsciously 
maintained  than  that  the  state  as  well  as  the 
individual  must  keep  "hands  off"  when  it  comes 
to  the  matter  of  a  man's  religious  convictions. 

As  long  as  the  individual's  religion  does  not 
interfere  with  the  manifest  and  common  rights 
of  others,  or  run  counter  to  the  laws  of  the  Re 
public,  he  is  absolutely  free  to  believe  or  not  to 
believe,  to  worship  or  not  to  worship. 

A  German  in  Berlin  remarked  to  me  a  few 
years  ago  in  speaking  of  the  alliance  of  students 
to  religion  in  that  Empire:  "You  know,  we  have 
no  heathen  in  Germany.  Every  student  is  a 
member  of  the  State  church  from  early  confirma 
tion  in  childhood." 

A  State  church  in  America,  however,  that 
would  for  a  moment  give  the  suggestion  of  in- 
voluntariness  in  the  matters  of  religion,  is  an 
idea  as  impossible  to  conceive  at  the  present 
time  as  enforced  military  service,  or  the  prohi 
bition  of  liquor  drinking  or  tobacco  smoking  by 
a  simple  fiat  of  the  Federal  Government.  In- 


200  American  Ideals 

deed,  one  of  the  most  common  objections  pastors 
of  churches  find  presented  by  parents  to  the 
baptism  of  their  children  in  early  youth  is  that 
they,  as  parents,  do  not  think  it  is  fair  to  the 
child,  or  that  they  have  no  right  to  allow  the 
child  to  take  such  a  step  in  so  important  a 
matter  until  he  is  old  enough  to  choose  for  him 
self.  In  religion,  as  in  so  many  things  that  in 
volve  individual  rights,  the  person  and  not  the 
state  is  the  norm.  In  many  cases  it  may  even 
tuate  that  the  child,  grown  to  manhood,  loses 
his  early  inclination  to  choose  a  place  in  the  ranks 
of  professed  religionists — but  the  theory  exists 
quite  widely  that  an  unforced  selection  of  reli 
gion  by  a  youth  makes  accession  to  the  church 
many  times  more  valuable  than  a  child  member 
swept  into  faith  at  the  required  wish  of  the  par 
ents,  and  who  frequently,  when  grown,  is  in 
clined  to  lay  his  religious  indifference  to  an  unfair 
advantage  taken  of  him  in  his  boyhood. 

The  necessary  loosening  of  the  ecclesiastical 
authority  of  the  Catholic  church  in  America,  as 
contrasted  with  its  firmer  grip  upon  its  mem 
bership  in  Spain  and  Italy  particularly,  is  an 
evidence  not  only  of  the  wisdom  of  the  Roman 
leadership,  but  also  of  tne  inevitable  democracy 
in  the  spirit  and  ideal  of  American  religion.  The 


Ideals  in  Religion  201 

famous  edict  of  William  of  Orange  that  "con 
science  is  God's  province,"  is  still  a  truism  in  the 
United  States,  and  the  only  people  who  have 
ever  dared  to  oppose  it  in  this  land  were  the 
Puritans  of  Massachusetts  and  the  Anglicans 
of  Virginia,  much  to  the  detriment  of  their  mem 
ory  in  later  generations. 

The  promiscuous  discussions  upon  things 
religious  exist  to-day  throughout  the  country 
as  they  never  existed  before.  There  is  not 
the  wholesale  ridicule  either  of  the  Bible  or  of 
religion  that  there  was  in  the  time  of  Thomas 
Paine,  who  said  that  he  had  gone  through  the 
Bible  as  a  woodman  would  go  through  a  forest 
felling  the  trees.  "The  priests  may  replant 
them,"  he  said,  "but  they  cannot  make  them 
grow."  I  was  struck  recently  in  walking  through 
Times  Square  to  see  the  popular  curb  debaters 
thrusting  a  youth  forcibly  into  the  street,  the 
leader  of  the  company,  who  was  evidently  of 
Jewish  extraction,  saying  in  explanation,  "This 
man  is  a  disgrace  to  his  race:  he  has  just  said 
that  he  didn't  believe  in  God."  In  a  visit  a 
few  years  ago  to  one  of  our  large  universities 
I  found  seven  students  enrolled  in  a  Bible  class, 
nearly  every  one  of  whom  professed  a  different 
stripe  of  belief.  One  said  he  was  a  free  thinker, 


2O2  American  Ideals 

two  leaned  toward  pantheism,  there  was  one 
Jew,  one  Catholic,  and  one  Christian.  The 
last  man  could  not  be  easily  classified,  and  for 
convenience  sake  he  was  called  a  vegetarian — 
an  aggregation  of  religious  tolerance  that  should 
cause  certain  of  our  forefathers  to  turn  over  in 
their  graves. 

America  is  frequently  spoken  of  as  a  country 
of  "isms,"  and  one  needs  only  to  pick  up  the 
Saturday  newspapers,  which  show  the  list  of 
services  for  Sunday  worship,  to  realize  the  cos 
mopolitan  character  of  American  religion.  The 
advance  in  the  matter  of  conceded  liberty  to 
every  form  of  faith,  recognizing  not  only  a  man's 
personal  liberty  to  think  for  himself,  but  also 
conceding  generously  the  same  privilege  to 
another,  has  been  specially  evident  and  rapid 
during  the  past  ten  years,  since  the  higher 
criticism  and  the  great  social-service  movements 
have  drawn  to  themselves  so  many  devoted  ad 
herents,  both  within  and  without  the  churches. 

In  spite  of  the  tremendous  losses,  especially 
in  the  realm  of  ethics,  which  necessarily  accrue 
from  the  omission  of  any  teaching  of  the  coun 
try's  book  of  religion,  and  in  spite  of  a  multitude 
of  attempts  to  introduce  the  Bible  into  the 
public-school  system,  this  ingrained  feeling  of 


Ideals  in  Religion  203 

the  right  of  the  individual  to  be  taught  only 
along  such  lines  as  accord  with  the  parent's 
faith,  at  least  until  he  is  old  enough  to  choose 
for  himself,  has  been  too  strong  to  admit  of  the 
introduction  of  any  considerable  moral  or  relig 
ious  teaching  in  the  school  curricula. 

Even  in  social  settlements,  which  are  sup 
ported  often  largely  by  church  adherents,  when 
one  asks,  "Why  do  you  not  give  your  young 
people  some  religious  instruction?"  the  answer 
will  be  forthcoming,  "We  cannot  do  it  because 
of  the  diversities  of  the  religions  represented; 
it  would  be  unfair  to  teach  one  faith  alone,  and 
the  conditions  of  the  work  make  it  impossible 
to  hold  services  or  to  give  religious  instruction 
in  all  the  beliefs  represented  by  the  frequenters 
of  the  settlement." 

The  growing  tolerance,  which  is  largely  a 
growth  of  the  fair-play  principle,  is  also  seen  in 
the  decrease  of  acrid  theological  discussions, 
and  in  some  areas  in  the  indifference  altogether 
to  matters  of  theological  import.  It  is  not 
necessarily  that  the  people  are  growing  less 
religious,  but  they  are  certainly  becoming  less 
interested  in  the  forms  in  which  the  religion  of 
the  last  generation  were  encrusted.  Many  of 
us  can  remember  how  our  own  fathers  became 


204  American  Ideals 

red  in  the  face  in  their  Sunday  after-dinner 
discussions  of  theology,  and  were  quite  willing 
to  brand  men  of  different  faith  as  semi-infidels, 
even  going  so  far  as  to  establish  a  kind  of  un 
conscious  weekday  boycott,  in  rural  communi 
ties,  of  the  merchants  and  artisans  who  were  not 
fortunate  enough  to  be  able  to  "believe  right" 
or  to  "be  sound"  in  their  views,  which  meant 
usually  tobelieve  as  the  religious  censors  believed. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  woman  of  the 
present  generation  speaking  as  we  once  heard 
an  old  lady  of  our  grandmother's  period  re 
mark,  "I  like  Mary  Smith,  but  if  she  joined 
the  Methodist  church  she  could  never  step 
her  foot  inside  my  door  again!"  We  recall 
vividly  our  childish  memory  of  our  mother 
blanching  before  the  Sunday  discussions  of  the 
doctrine  of  free  will,  predestination,  and  infant 
baptism,  and  fairly  worrying  herself  ill  in  trying 
to  invent  less  belligerent  topics  of  conversation. 
To-day  a  Jew,  a  Baptist,  and  a  Christian  Scien 
tist  may  dwell  and  dine  together  in  a  peace  as 
perfect  and  unruffled  as  that  of  a  June  morning. 
They  have  learned  to  emphasize  their  affirma 
tions  and  points  of  agreement,  and  to  minimize 
their  differences  to  an  extent  far  greater  than 
was  possible  even  a  generation  ago. 


Ideals  in  Religion  205 

Some  would  say,  "so  much  the  worse  for  our 
religion,  and  also  for  our  country's  tolerance,  if 
it  is  responsible  for  creating  such  indifference 
to  religion."  The  greater  majority  would 
probably  agree  with  the  college  president  who, 
after  having  made  attendance  at  chapel  ex 
ercises  voluntary  rather  than  required,  was 
severely  criticised  by  certain  religious  propa 
gandists  who  ironically  addressed  him,  saying, 
"we  understand  that  you  have  made  God  an 
elective  in  your  college!"  The  president  re 
plied,  "No,  but  we  understand  that  He  has  made 
Himself  elective  everywhere."  Religious  toler 
ance  is  to-day  a  commonplace,  almost  a  uni 
versal,  condition  in  the  United  States. 

Whether  it  is  due  to  this  growing  spirit  of 
tolerance,  or  to  the  additional  emphasis  upon 
the  secular  life  of  the  period,  there  is  a  strong 
drift,  growing  in  volume  year  by  year,  toward 
associating  religion  with  daily  life.  The  na 
tional  feeling  is  increasing  that  Sunday  religion 
and  church  going  are  not  necessarily  marks  of 
the  kind  of  religion  that  is  attractive  and  useful 
in  American  eyes.  The  sanctity  of  Sunday 
has  decreasing  hold  upon  the  majorities,  es 
pecially  the  kind  of  Sunday  that  is  different 
in  spirit  from  the  other  six  days  of  the  week. 


206  American  Ideals 

Meanwhile,  the  elemental  needs  of  the  Amer 
ican  heart  are  changeless  through  the  years,  and 
the  country  that  has  always  held  personal  and 
national  righteousness  in  its  deepest  thought 
and  as  its  loftiest  ideal,  coincident  with  true 
worth  and  achievement  of  any  andevery  sort,  will 
not  long  go  religionless.  Indeed  the  American 
temperament  cannot,  if  it  would,  eliminate  God 
and  the  soul,  with  all  that  these  represent  in  our 
composite  civilization.  As  a  people  we  are 
always  somewhere  near  the  mountain  of  re 
ligious  and  spiritual  vision,  despite  the  fact  that 
the  American  will  usually  stoutly  deny  that 
this  is  his  first  interest  in  life. 

When  one  gets  out  of  the  cities  into  the  coun 
try  and  the  smaller  towns  (where  one  sees 
religious  tendencies  as  all  other  tendencies 
freer  from  the  obstructing  media  of  competitive 
materialism  and  abnormal  cosmopolitan  in 
fluences,  and  where  one  also  sees  the  real  nature 
of  the  country  reflected  most  truly),  the  church 
bulks  larger  as  an  institution;  it  is  still  the 
place  where  the  majority  of  the  people  find  the 
centre  of  their  social  life  as  well  as  the  fountain 
of  their  spiritual  interests.  Even  here,  how 
ever,  if  one  examines  the  motives  of  church 
going  and  church  allegiance,  one  will  find  as 


Ideals  in  Religion  207 

guiding  principles  the  force  of  habit,  public 
opinion,  "  respectability,"  and  the  sense  that 
somehow,  in  a  way  that  people  do  not  exactly 
stop  to  define,  the  organization  of  the  church 
stands  for  an  element  of  communal  good  which 
children  and  families  can  ill  afford  to  be  with 
out.  The  loyalty  to  sect  is  much  stronger 
outside  the  cities,  and  there  is  a  less  noticeable 
tendency  to  make  service  an  ideal  for  the  uplift 
of  the  community.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the 
spiritual  life  of  these  churches  flows  much 
higher  than  in  the  cities;  one  reason  for  so 
thinking  resides  in  the  fact  that  a  large  number 
of  the  rural  population  moving  so  rapidly  to 
the  large  centres  fail  to  ally  themselves  with 
city  churches,  but  rather  seem  to  regard  the 
new  environment  as  a  welcome  opportunity 
for  release  from  the  religious  bonds  which  have 
held  them  all  too  loosely  in  their  deepest  desires 
and  interests. 

Notwithstanding  these  apparent  signs  of 
indifference  to  church  affiliations,  the  religious 
ideal  is  confessedly  one  of  the  easiest  ideals  with 
which  to  interest  Americans,  especially  wheTT 
it  is  clothed  in  the  right  sort  of  language,  and 
concerns  itself,  not  with  external  technicalities 
of  doctrine  and  prohibition,  but  with  the  ele- 


208  American  Ideals 

mental  relationships  and  realities  of  everyday 
life.  There  are  scores  of  ways  by  which  this 
religious  feeling  is  moved  to  the  point  of  wor 
ship  of  "Something  not  ourselves. " 

The  university  man,  for  example,  reflects  the 
nation's  characteristics  in  this  direction  quite 
accurately.  You  will  often  see  in  a  college 
fraternity  a  group  of  students,  more  or  less 
athletically  inclined,  standing  about  a  piano  on 
a  Sunday  afternoon,  or  on  any  evening  sub 
sequent  to  the  evening  meal,  singing  college 
airs,  while  the  ragtime  musician  of  the  frater 
nity  pounds  out  his  variations  in  accordance 
with  his  peculiar  art.  Slowly  the  sounds  melt 
downward  toward  the  plantation  melodies  until 
they  frequently  reach  a  deep  emotional  note 
in  the  singing  of  the  college  Alma  Mater.  The 
bystander  noticed  the  change  as  this  last  song 
was  sung  in  one  of  these  fraternities,  and  the 
sentiment  appealed  to  him  as  not  being  a 
thousand  miles  removed  from  religious  feeling 
as  it  welled  up  in  the  voices  of  the  singers. 
Upon  asking  one  of  the  men  later  about  his  sing 
ing  he  said,  "You  know,  it's  funny,  but  when 
we  get  to  that  last  song,  it  does  something  to  me 
way  down  deep."  Seme  one  has  said  that  a 
college  man's  songs  and  yells  are  his  prayers. 


V 


Ideals  in  Religion  209 

We  have  seen  a  group  of  men  in  a  city  club, 
certainly  not  notable  for  its  religious  atmo 
sphere,  so  stirred  by  the  singing  of  the  ballad 
"Oh,  Friend  of  Mine"  by  a  member  of  an  opera 
company  that  if  some  one  at  its  close  had 
said  "Let  us  pray!"  the  crowd  would  have 
bowed  its  head  with  no  great  surprise.  After 
a  darkey  quartette  in  a  big  labor  meeting  had 
finished  singing  the  old  Southern  melody  with 
its  plaintive  strain,  "The  Lambs  Are  Calling 
Shepherd  Feed  Thy  Sheep" — one  man  was  over 
heard  to  say,  "It  wouldn't  be  hard  to  have  an 
evangelistic  meeting  right  here  and  now."  All 
of  which  goes  to  show  that  emotional  feeling 
and  religious  sentiment  flow  closely  together  in 
the  American  temperament,  and  that  the  church 
of  to-day  which  substitutes  intellectual  ad 
dresses  and  lectures  upon  everything  from  poli 
tics  to  war  problems,  leaving  out  the  great  mov 
ing  appeals  to  the  human  heart,  is  not  moving 
nearer  but  farther  away  from  the  deep  longings 
of  the  American  masses. 

Arguments  to  prove  the  religiosity  of  Ameri 
cans  are  needless.  It  is  ours  by  heritage  and 
by  nature.  In  every  stage  of  the  development 
of  the  United  States  we  have  not  been  without 
thought  regarding  the  expression  of  this  idealism 


2io  American  Ideals 

in  some  form  or  other.  Sometimes,  alas,  it  has 
seemed  very  much  like  bigotry,  again  a  great 
tide  of  evangelism  has  swept  the  land,  and  at 
another  period  it  has  come  to  the  surface  in  a 
nation-wide  eruption  of  honesty  and  moral  pur- 
posefulness  or  renovation.  This  ideal  has  always 
seemed  as  natural  as  it  has  been  needful  in 
the  United  States,  both  for  the  reinforcement  of 
our  faltering  purposes,  the  inspiring  afresh  to 
personal  achievement  of  character,  and  also  as 
the  medium  in  which  the  people  might  hear  the 
Voice  of  a  higher  and  invisible  power. 

Some  would  say  that  socialism  has  now  be 
come  the  religion  of  a  great  number.  To  others 
church  buildings  reveal  the  inclination  to  wor 
shipful  surroundings  with  elaborate  architec 
ture  and  ritual.  To  many  another  religion  is 
synonymous  with  philanthropy,  and  to  others  it 
signifies  the  dropping  of  old  creeds  and  the  taking 
up  of  new  ones  so  varied  that  even  their  names 
would  make  necessary  a  new  dictionary  to  ex 
plain  their  tenets  and  their  titles.  There  is 
probably  no  limit  to  be  placed  upon  the  hetero 
geneous  expression  which  this  religious  motive 
is  capable  of  taking  in  a  nation  made  up  of  so 
many  diverse  forces,  ard  representing  so  many 
strains  of  racial  and  national  ideas  and  natures 


Ideals  in  Religion  211 

released  in  an  atmosphere  of  carefully  guarded 
religious  freedom. 

These  mingled  ideals  and  their  methods  of 
fulfilment  may  be  grouped  under  two  heads: 

First,  those  that  aim  at  the  ideal  of  a  new 
social  organism  as  the  surest  means  of  "saving" 
the  people  and  the  state — a  variety  of  large 
and  comprehensive  socialism — finding  its  arena 
in  multiplied  efforts  at  betterment  in  restrictive 
or  reform  legislation,  and  in  multifold  schemes  of 
economic  and  political  readjustment.  It  is  a 
religion  of  humanity  whose  watchword  is, 
"Change  the  conditions  of  life,  and  you  will  get 
a  world  in  which  the  dwellers  will  find  satis 
factory  environment  making  for  their  peace  and 
prosperity." 

Second,  there  are  those  ideals  which  have  for 
a  longer  time  been  present  in  the  American 
consciousness,  and  which  aim  not  so  much  at 
society  as  at  the  man  himself.  They  are  repre 
sented  by  the  church  and  also  by  many  outside 
the  church,  and  their  insistence,  differing  with 
times  and  localities,  has  been  upon  the  belief 
that  the  salvation  of  the  social  organism  hinges 
upon  the  reconstructed  and  regenerated  individ 
ual.  The  man,  rather  than  the  method,  is 
placed  in  the  foreground.  The  sin  of  the  per- 


212  American  Ideals 

sonal  human  heart  is  considered  more  important 
to  attend  than  the  sin  of  the  nation.  Its  slogan 
is,  "Change  the  heart!  Efface  the  wrong  in  the 
individual,  especially  the  wish  for  wrong;  give 
him  a  right  temper,  a  right  desire  and  disposition, 
and  you  will  perforce,  by  the  process  of  indirec 
tion,  make  the  nation  right."  Those  holding 
this  ideal  maintain  that  any  other  emphasis  is  a 
temporizing  and  a  palliative  only,  that  drives 
the  unscotched  evil  of  the  units  of  the  common 
wealth  into  other  forms  of  social  and  corporate 
unrighteousness. 

In  other  words,  the  religious  idealism  of 
America  is  fairly  divided  at  present  between 
what  we  may  call  social  service,  or  socialism  in  a 
large  catholic  sense,  saving  the  world  by  the 
strong  forces  of  environment  and  philanthropy, 
and  Christianity  as  represented  primarily  in  the 
Gospel  of  Christ,  which  attaches  the  hopes  of  a 
new  order  to  the  focussing  of  attention  upon  the 
mind  and  heart  and  soul  of  the  individual, 
attending  first  of  all  to  Christian  character 
rather  than  to  the  manufacture  of  uplifting 
surroundings. 

In  the  conflict  of  religious  ideals  in  the  United 
States  the  present  victory  seems  to  lie  with  the 
apostles  of  the  service  idea.  In  our  philanthropy 


V 

Ideals  in  Religion  213 

we  have  outstripped  and  amazed  the  world. 
While  other  nations  have  been  stunned  by  dis 
aster  and  famine  and  the  persecution  of  weaker 
races,  America  has  started  a  subscription  paper 
and  has  raised  trainloads  and  shiploads  of  sup 
plies  and  succor  for  suffering  and  oppressed 
humanity,  even  while  other  nations  are  reading 
the  news  of  the  catastrophe.  One  needs  only 
to  recall  the  opening  of  the  American  heart  at 
the  time  of  such  events  as  the  Armenian  massa 
cres,  the  famines  in  India,  the  Galveston  and 
San  Francisco  and  Messina  calamities,  and 
especially  the  present  rising  up  of  the  nation's 
generosity  in  the  case  of  the  Belgian  and  Servian 
sufferers. 

Our  "Foundations"  medical,  social,  political, 
peace,  and  educational,  are  almost  staggering, 
not  only  in  their  number,  but  in  the  vast  prodi 
gality  of  wealth  with  which  they  have  been 
established.  Our  pension  systems  for  old  sol 
diers  and  for  new  ones,  for  professors,  for  miners, 
and  of  late  for  civilians  and  artisans,  are  being 
established  so  rapidly  that  world  almanacs  are 
out  of  date  almost  before  they  get  into  circula 
tion.  The  last  dozen  years  have  recorded  almost 
a  continuous  unearthing  of  evil  in  all  sorts  and 
kinds  of  organizations  and  in  well-nigh  every 


214  American  Ideals 

division  of  the  body  politic;  social,  political,  and 
municipal  shame  of  every  grade  and  hue  has 
been  unearthed  and  unloaded  by  the  cartload. 
We  have  investigated  and  reformed  almost 
everything  investigable  and  reformable,  rang 
ing  spaciously  all  the  way  from  insurance  com 
panies  to  "Sunday"  evangelism.  Bad  tene 
ments,  bad  light,  bad  dance  halls,  bad  sewerage, 
bad  medicine,  and  bad  Mormons — all  have  been 
under  the  searchlight.  We  have  spent  the 
cities'  money  on  commissions  to  study  streets 
and  statesmanship  and  sanitation  in  Europe. 
We  have  not  neglected  our  sweatshops  and  our 
stockyards,  our  prisons  and  our  poorhouses, 
while  the  "educational"  and  "social"  and 
"business"  drama  and  melodrama,  including 
everything  between  white  slavery  and  polygamy, 
to  the  degradation  of  courts  and  the  captains 
of  industry,  have  been  spread  before  the  nation's 
appalled  and  wincing  eyes.  The  only  end  to 
this  vast  nation-wide  mania  of  uplift  for  analysis 
and  reform  is  the  natural  ennui  and  disgust  of  the 
populace.  There  is  a  lull  at  present  in  certain 
quarters,  for  even  the  American  gets  tired  of  his 
own  excesses  and  must  have  new  worlds  to  con 
quer.  The  managers  aad  stockholders  of  some 
of  our  most  shame-mongering  periodicals  are 


Ideals  in  Religion  215 

reported  as  calling  a  halt  on  muckrakers  and 
sexual  fiction,  and  even  the  drama  is  showing 
signs  of  passing  out  of  unwholesome  topics  into  a 
cleaner  air.  The  ideal,  however,  of  saving  society 
by  social  revolution  and  publicity  is  still  running 
strong  in  the  nation's  consciousness.  It  is  a  pe 
riod  of  social  regeneration,  and  nothing  secular 
or  familiar  to  the  light  of  common  day  is  alien 
to  it. 

All  to  what  end?  Does  a  thoughtful  glance 
at  the  results  of  this  highly  specialized  and  so 
cialized  ideal  in  our  modern  civilization  enspirit 
us  to  further  advances  along  this  line,  or  does  it 
suggest  more  deliberate  consideration  relative 
to  means  for  the  renovation  and  uplifting  of  the 
modern  state? 

Does  Germany,  for  example,  with  the  cleanest 
streets  of  any  city  in  the  world,  confessedly  with 
the  best  municipal  and  educational  system, 
especially  with  its  educational  propaganda  for 
the  industrial  classes,  encourage  us  in  the  con 
tinuation  of  secular  religion?  Does  Germany, 
to  whom  we  have  gone  to  school  in  the  varied 
arts  of  beautification  and  perfection  of  environ 
ments,  of  street  cleaning,  of  care  for  defective 
children,  of  old-age  pensions  and  of  model  tene 
ment  houses,  and  a  score  of  other  advances  in 


216  American  Ideals 

state  and  school  and  home — does  Germany  give 
us  hope  for  saving  ourselves  and  our  country 
through  model  changes  in  the  social  organism? 
Does  she  not  possess  all  these  externalities  of 
regeneration  to  a  degree  of  perfection  that  we  or 
any  other  nation  can  hardly  expect  to  equal  or 
surpass?  Yet  when  the  real  crisis  for  showing 
the  power  and  capacity  of  national  ideals  in 
morals  or  religion  occurs,  in  the  real  needs  of 
humanity  when  idealism  is  driven  from  its 
hidden  places,  this  socialized  state  tears  up 
treaties  like  "scraps  of  paper/'  she  disregards  the 
international  safeguards  of  nations,  the  only 
ropes  by  which  the  world's  civilization  can  be 
bound  together  with  hope  in  moments  of  crisis; 
she  sweeps  through  neutral  unbelligerent  na 
tions,  carrying  deadly  and  inhuman  destruction 
to  lives  and  property,  blighting  with  torturing 
breath  the  most  sacred  sanctions  of  family  and 
home.  This  nation,  which  has  grown  great 
through  her  attention  to  the  outward  details  of 
twentieth-century  civilization,  seems  to  lose  both 
her  head  and  her  heart  when  her  selfish  interests 
are  at  stake;  she  throws  a  shell  upon  peaceful 
sleeping  hamlets  by  night,  she  poisons  with 
death-agonizing  gases  tiiose  she  may  not  kill 
otherwise;  then,  as  it  would  seem,  in  a  premedi- 


Ideals  in  Religion  217 

tated  ideal  of  fright  fulness  and  moral  unrestraint 
she  places  the  capstone  on  the  arch  of  her  ruth 
less  and  life-destroying  regime  by  casting  tor 
pedoes  at  ships  loaded  with  defenceless  women 
and  little  children,  standing  apart  and  listening 
unresponsive  to  the  anguished  shrieks  of  the 
drowning, 

"Just  as  if  Jesus  had  never  lived, 
As  if  He  had  never  died." 

Is  it  not  proof,  tragic  beyond  the  reaches  of 
the  imagination,  that  social  and  highly  de 
veloped  environmental  councils  of  perfection, 
as  nearly  complete  as  anywhere  on  the  face  of 
the  earth,  are  as  powerless  as  cobwebs  to  stay 
the  elemental  passions  of  the  untamed  and  un- 
emancipated  human  heart? 

We  ask  has  Christianity  collapsed  in  this 
spectacle  spread  before  our  eyes  in  this  most 
deadly  of  all  wars  of  the  world?  Is  it  only 
left  for  us  to  say  resignedly, 

"Evil  has  won 

In  the  horrid  feud  of  ages  with  the  throne. 
Evil  stands  on  the  neck  of  good,  and  rules  the  world 
alone." 


218  American  Ideals 

Do  we  as  Christians  despair  of  Christianity 
because  of  scenes  and  conditions  like  these? 

The  very  question  is  a  travesty  on  words.  It  is 
not  Christianity  which  has  collapsed,  for  the 
Christian  ethic  or  the  Christian  spirit  have  no 
more  to  do  with  the  informing  and  the  bringing 
to  fruition  of  these  baneful  results  than  the 
inquisitorial  burning  of  martyrs  had  to  do  with 
the  healing,  tolerant  spirit  of  the  Man  of  Galilee. 
In  the  words  of  Teutonic  idealism  itself,  these 
events  are  the  hallmark  of  a  Napoleonic  and 
not  a  Christian  regime,  the  practical  evidence 
before  the  eyes  of  all  men  of  a  religion  that 
makes  no  pretence  at  beating  "its  swords  into 
plowshares,"  but  has  accepted  hate  and  might 
and  the  religion  of  valor  in  its  place,  the  polar 
antithesis  of  every  principle  laid  down  by  the 
ethic  of  Jesus.  It  is  the  ideal  of  steel  and  iron, 
crushing  and  trampling  into  dust  the  loftiest 
hopes  of  the  spirit  and  the  soul  of  man. 

If  there  was  ever  a  visible  and  consummate 
proof  of  the  saying  of  a  great  scientist  who  was 
once  asked  about  the  "failure  of  Christianity," 
and  answered,  "The  failure  of  Christianity?  I 
have  never  yet  seen  Christianity  tried," — it 
would  seem  to  be  here.  Amid  all  the  heart 
break  of  these  days,  if  there  is  any  such  thing 


Ideals  in  Religion  219 

still  resident  on  earth  as  that  which  Gladstone 
once  called,  "A  double  dose  of  original  sin/' 
this  is  a  notable  example  of  it. 

Yet  we  do  not  need  to  go  abroad  to  discover 
the  demolition  of  ideals  that  play  only  on  the 
surface  of  social  organization  but  fail  to  reach 
the  roots  of  human  nature,  ideals  that  are  the 
resultant  merely  of  secular  and  ethical  na 
tionalism.  At  the  enormous  expense  of  money 
and  press  notices  and  a  great  expenditure  of 
legislative  debate  and  legislation,  we  pass  inter 
state  and  various  kinds  of  federal  laws,  aiming 
at  the  restriction  of  evil-doing  among  railroad 
officials,  punishing  often  beyond  reason  and 
justice  the  great  carriers  of  the  nation  for  their 
mistakes  which  are  as  great  as  their  achieve 
ments.  Then  before  the  ink  is  fairly  dry  on  the 
statute  books,  new  railroad  scandals  larger 
perhaps  than  any  that  have  yet  appeared  reveal 
themselves  in  unlooked-for  directions,  with  new 
forms  of  chicanery  and  official  corruption,  and 
widows  and  mothers  from  Portland  to  New 
Haven  are  bereft  of  their  savings,  which  have 
gone  to  fill  the  deficits  of  railroad  companies, 
some  of  whose  officials  are  among  our  much- 
lauded  philanthropists  and  apostles  of  the  social 
izing  gospel. 


22O  American  Ideals 

Is  there  not  need  to  appreciate  with  new 
candor,  not  simply  the  inadequacy  of  exter- 
nalism  as  a  religion,  but  also  that  such  ideals 
are  far  indeed  from  the  teaching  of  the  Founder 
of  the  religious  faith  under  whose  banner  our 
country  was  inaugurated  ?  This  Christian  ideal 
is  aimed,  not  first  at  the  body  politic,  but  at 
the  individual  man.  It  places  its  stamp,  to  be 
sure,  upon  the  command  to  serve  and  to  minister 
to  our  fellowmen.  It  would  be  an  anachro 
nism  of  Christian  ideals  that  would  advocate 
the  passing  by  on  the  other  side  of  contempo 
rary  Samaritans,  saying,  "Be  ye  warmed  and 
clothed,"  but  doing  nothing  to  assist  in  the 
process.  But  even  Samaritan  tending,  accord 
ing  to  the  principles  laid  down  and  acted  on  by 
Christ,  is  not  the  first  or  the  central  ideal  of  the 
Christian  religion.  The  first  great  command 
ment  is  the  love  of  man  to  God,  which  has  been 
translated  as  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man, 
and  this  commandment  came  before  the  second, 
not  only  in  Biblical  sequence,  but  in  the  entire 
New  Testament  emphasis;  it  comes  before  it 
in  life,  in  our  twentieth-century  life,  if  the  second 
commandment  is  to  be  fully  served. 

Matthew  Arnold  said  that  it  was  by  the 
"spirit  and  the  method  of  Jesus,"  and  in  no  other 


Ideals  in  Religion  221 

way,  that  religion  is  to  be  made  permanent 
in  the  world.  If  Christianity  is  to  have  a  fair 
trial,  if  this  spirit  and  method  of  Jesus  is  to  bear 
any  weight  whatsoever  upon  the  lives  of  men, 
it  must  be  the  individual  man  rather  than  his 
circumstances  upon  which  we  must  rivet  at 
tention.  The  man  is  the  maker  of  his  circum 
stances,  and  the  circumstances  have  never  truly 
made  or  decided  the  course  of  great  manhood. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  pauperism  was 
more  common  in  the  first  century  than  it  is 
to-day,  far  more  common,  yet  the  Founder  of 
the  Christian  faith  neither  organized  nor  ad 
vocated  reforms  for  pauperism;  He  left  no  such 
system  of  poor  laws  as  we  find  even  in  the  old 
Jewish  histories  of  the  Old  Testament.  No  one 
who  has  travelled  in  Eastern  countries  could 
possibly  get  the  impression  that  there  was  no 
need  at  present,  as  in  the  first  century,  for  atten 
tion  to  sanitation  and  hygiene.  Yet  the  early 
founders  of  Christianity  gave  the  matter,  as  far 
as  we  know,  little  of  their  regard,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Moses, 
fourteen  centuries  previous,  they  had  the  ex 
ample  of  laws  of  sanitation  and  all  kinds  of 
bodily  purifications  as  matters  of  legal  and 
religious  significance.  No  one  can  maintain 


222  American  Ideals 

that  the  silence  of  the  New  Testament  relative 
to  these  matters  can  be  urged  on  the  strength  of 
their  being  unknown  subjects  or  topics  of  incon 
siderable  importance  to  the  people  or  the  age. 
Muhammad,  contrariwise,  recognized  the  need 
of  ceaseless  ablutions,  and  made  his  laws 
of  bathing  an  inseparable  preparation  for 
prayer. 

But  with  the  intuitive  and  certain  concen 
tration  of  great  men,  we  find  Christ  sweeping  by 
the  externalisms  of  his  race,  in  both  secular  and 
religious  things  alike,  to  strike  at  what  was 
to  him  evidently  the  core  of  religion.  It  was 
this: 

"Woe  unto  you,  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites! 
For  ye  cleanse  the  outside  of  the  cup,  and  of  the 
platter,  but  within  they  are  full  from  extortions  and 
excess.  Thou  blind  Pharisee,  cleanse  first  the  inside 
of  the  cup  and  of  the  platter,  that  the  outside  there 
of  may  become  clean  also." 

It  was  good  men  before  good  measures.  It 
seems  a  slower  process,  yet  the  precepts  of  our 
national  faith  correspond  with  the  intuitive 
good  sense  of  a  vast  multitude  of  Americans 
when  they  enjoin  us  twat  we  get  on  faster  in 
the  end  toward  great  religious  ideals  by  giving 


Ideals  in  Religion  223 

our  attention  first  to  making  men,  then  laws, 
and  good  bodily  environment  in  order.  "These 
ought  ye  to  have  done,  and  not  to  have  left  the 
other  undone."  Given  good  men  and  we  must 
by  inherent  necessity  of  natural  law  have  good 
laws,  good  schools,  and  harmonious  cooperation 
between  classes.  That  all  the  advanced  laws, 
be  they  relative  to  tariff  and  government  or  to 
rum  or  land  tax  or  communism,  are  nerveless 
and  inadequate  for  good  civilization  in  the 
hands  of  bad  men  as  administrators  is  a  truism, 
but  it  has  not  become  sufficiently  patent  to 
guide  us  in  our  acts. 

We  have  left  at  the  side  a  mighty  principle 
in  our  great  and  sensible  religion,  and  have  said, 
contrary  to  its  injunction,  u  Feedthe  man,  culture 
him,  give  him  good  morals,  and  if  there  is  any 
time  left  cultivate  his  soul!"  We  have  reversed 
the  process  of  our  religion.  To  change  a  man's 
clothes  and  even  to  fill  his  stomach  without 
changing  his  mind  and  the  innermost  ideals  of 
his  nature  is  the  veriest  acme  of  "poking  the 
fire  from  the  top."  It  is  to  lose  the  true  leverage 
on  the  things  that  make  the  real  difference  in 
human  nature.  It  is  to  put  the  foreground  in 
the  background  of  national  progress. 

The  spiritual  man  is  the  chief  hope  of  the 


224  American  Ideals 

moral,  intellectual,  or  physically  healthy  and 
happy  man.  In  religion  the  official  arbiter 
is  the  spiritual  consciousness  of  the  individual, 
as  in  science  it  is  the  intellectual  consciousness. 
Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  once  said,  "  Christ  did  not 
begin  with  the  bottom  of  the  man  and  work  up 
to  the  top,  he  began  with  the  top  of  the  man 
and  worked  down  toward  the  bottom."  This 
was  also  the  method  of  Socrates:  "All  good  and 
evil/'  the  old  Greek  said,  "whether  in  the  body 
or  in  human  nature,  originate  in  the  soul  and 
overflow  from  thence,  as  from  the  head  into 
the  eye.  And,  therefore,  if  the  head  and  body 
are  to  be  well,  you  must  begin  by  curing  the 
soul:  that  is  the  first  thing." 

The  Christian  ethic  and  gospel,  if  it  can  once 
get  tried,  is  the  epitome  of  the  highest  religious 
idealism — an  idealism  that  draws  a  man's  spirit 
from  above  to  the  vision  of  his  own  profitable 
individual  perfection,  a  perfection  that  is  worked 
out  through  the  stimulus  of  the  vision  of  God. 
This  ideal  has  been  in  the  background  of 
American  civilization  for  a  long  time,  but  there 
was  never  a  period  when  it  needed  a  more  vig 
orous  restatement.  Emerson's  whole  message 
gathers  around  the  iuea  that  the  institution  is 
but  the  lengthened  shadow  of  a  man.  That 


Ideals  in  Religion  225 

church  and  that  devoted  pastor  and  all  those 
everywhere  who  have  refrained  from  prostituting 
the  high  message  aimed  at  a  renewed,  reverential, 
and  divine  manhood,  to  the  merely  temporary 
expedients  of  a  socialized  and  non-spiritual 
opportunism — these  are  the  nation's  bulwark 
of  power. 

Count  Okuma  in  speaking  of  the  politics  of 
his  nation  said  to  me,  "The  great  need  in  Japan 
to-day  is  to  spiritualize  our  politics."  Likewise 
in  America,  there  is  upon  us  even  now  the  mo 
ment  when  not  only  our  country  but  the  nations 
of  the  world  bid  us  gather  up  our  broken  idols 
and  half  dreams  of  social  and  political  progress, 
not  abandoning  the  new  and  helpful  order  of 
service,  but  reinspiring  it,  breathing  through  it 
the  true  spirit  of  the  Founder  of  the  religion 
which  has  not  really  lost  amongst  us  individ 
ual  or  national  respect  for  its  reality  and  power. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
ATTITUDE  TOWARD  THE  IMMIGRANT 

The  bulk  of  the  Americans  don't  get  as  yet  any 
real  sense  of  his  portentous  multitude. 

H.  G.  WELLS. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
ATTITUDE  TOWARD  THE  IMMIGRANT 

THE  present  European  war  and  its  subsequent 
results  in  the  national  and  social  mobility  of  the 
nations  of  the  world  bring  to  our  grave  atten 
tion  the  ideals  America  holds  relative  to  the 
10,500,000  immigrants  who  have  landed  in  the 
United  States  since  the  opening  of  the  twentieth 
century,  and  to  the  future  attitude  we  shall  take 
regarding  this  vast  flood  of  alien  power  and 
possibility.  Of  these  enormous  accessions,  added 
so  quickly  to  the  lower  strata  of  our  social  life, 
less  than  15  per  cent,  had  $50  between  them  and 
starvation  when  they  reached  our  shores.  Four 
out  of  every  five  have  no  trade,  and  more  than 
seven  million  of  the  peoples  of  Slav,  Latin,  and 
Asiatic  blood  are  coagulated  in  crowded  indus 
trial  centres  where  the  traditional  ideals  of 
European  life,  in  many  cases  the  antitheses  of 
those  of  America,  are  left  to  germinate  almost 
untouched  save  by  the  incitements  of  the  labor 
agitator.  Only  to  consider,  however  superfici- 
229 


230  American  Ideals 

ally,  the  fact  that  at  present  the  male  workers  of 
foreign  parentage  outnumber  the  workers  of 
native  parentage,  and  that  this  flood  of  popula 
tion  eclipses  our  native-born  birth  rate,  is  to 
suggest  the  enormity  of  our  problem  in  Ameri 
canizing  these  members  of  fifty-six  different 
immigrant  nationalities. 

The  questions  these  figures  arouse  are  almost 
legion.  There  are  those  that  involve  education, 
safeguarding  of  womanhood  and  childhood,  re 
spect  and  obedience  to  law,,  naturalization  and 
citizenship,  foreign  government  subsidies,  class 
legislation,  exclusion  by  government,  and  a 
score  of  theories  of  service  and  betterment,  some 
of  which  are  in  successful  operation,  but  which 
as  a  whole  are  lacking  in  coherence  and  in  unity 
to  a  common  goal.  The  problem  might  natu 
rally  lead  men  like  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  who  take  a 
hurried  glance  at  these  congeries  of  peoples  and 
opinions  regarding  them,  to  say, '"I  could  not 
make  them  understand  the  apprehension  with 
which  this  huge  dilution  of  the  American  people 
with  profoundly  ignorant  foreign  peasants 
filled  me." 

We  must  consider  this  problem  in  the  light 
of  our  past  experience  as-well  as  with  our  eyes  on 
the  present  and  the  future. 


Attitude  Toward  the  Immigrant       231 

Since  the  year  1845  there  has  been  proceeding 
a  migration  to  the  United  States  far  beyond  any 
thing  the  world  has  known  since  the  fifth  and 
seventh  centuries,  when  in  Europe  and  Western 
Asia  the  Slavic  and  Teutonic  tribes  migrated  to 
the  Roman  Empire.  The  migration  began  even 
as  far  back  as  1820,  when  the  English  settlers 
came  in  comparatively  small  numbers,  about 
20,000  per  annum,  to  the  last  year  when  an 
avalanche  of  1,000,000  persons  landed  on  our 
hospitable  shores. 

The  Bureau  of  Immigration  reveals  the  ad 
dition  of  1,250,000  between  the  years  1845  anc^ 
1855,  fr°m  Ireland,  while  the  total  Irish  immi 
gration  between  1820  and  1909  was  4,218,107, 
a  vast  Celtic  wave  in  number  equal  to  the  entire 
population  of  Ireland  in  the  year  1909. 

The  coming  of  Germans  to  America  began  in 
1852,  and  in  the  year  1909  reached  a  total  of 
5,320,312  persons  of  Teuton  stock  who  looked  to 
the  New  World  for  their  future  home. 

Next  came  the  Scandinavians,  beginning  in 
1856  with  a  strong  current  of  migration  reaching 
in  1909  a  total  of  1,896,139  souls. 

It  was  not  until  1880  that  the  stronger  tide  of 
immigration  set  in  from  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Monarchy,  and  in  1882  from  Italy  and  Russia, 


232  American  Ideals 

From  the  year  1890  Central  and  Southern  Eu 
rope  have  led  the  van  of  these  new  Americans, 
and  their  total  in  1907  numbered  1,285,000,  and 
altogether  between  the  years  of  1900  and  1909 
there  were  8,000,000  additions  to  the  American 
population  from  this  section  of  Europe.  With 
this  latter  influx  also  there  came  new  elements  in 
both  race  and  religion,  and  in  some  respects 
these  peoples  have  furnished  the  most  intricate 
problems  of  assimilation. 

Furthermore,  there  is  the  record  of  far  greater 
growth  by  the  birth  rate  than  among  the  native- 
born  Americans.  In  certain  states  this  rate  is 
three  times  that  of  the  dwellers  of  native  stock. 
In  the  year  1910  more  than  half  of  the  white 
population  of  the  country  was  foreign  or  children 
of  foreigners,  and  in  that  year  we  find  that 
twice  as  many  offspring  were  born  to  foreigners 
as  to  the  native  population.  If  the  present  rate 
and  proportionate  addition  from  the  various 
nations  of  the  earth  continues,  it  has  been  esti 
mated  that  in  the  year  1950  at  least  three  fourths 
of  the  population  of  the  United  States  will  be  of 
foreign  extraction. 

At  first  sight  this  would  seem  to  mean  an 
almost  impossible  task  of  Americanization. 
There  are  large  considerations  which  mitigate 


Attitude  Toward  the  Immigrant       233 

the  seeming  huge  problem  of  absorption.  One 
aid  lies  in  the  fact  that  with  this  new  prospective 
population  of  1950,  certainly  one  half  will  con 
sist  of  the  emigration  from  the  United  Kingdom, 
Germany,  and  the  Scandinavian  countries,  and 
the  process  of  assimilating  these  people  of  more 
or  less  kindred  interests  in  religion,  and  in  some 
cases  likeness  of  government  and  racial  tradi 
tions,  is  much  easier  than  is  the  case  with  some 
of  the  races  of  Southern  Europe  and  Asiatic 
lands.  Of  these  latter  there  will  be,  according 
to  the  present  ratio  of  immigration,  enormous  as 
it  seems,  but  about  20  or  25  per  cent,  of  the  total 
incomers.  It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that 
the  birth  rate  is  declining  among  the  second 
generation  of  foreigners,  and  that  there  is  also  a 
depletion  of  the  foreign  reserve  in  certain  coun 
tries.  The  conditions  arising  as  a  result  of  the 
present  war  no  one  can  surely  predict.  That 
each  of  the  nations  now  engaged  in  the  conflict 
will  be  more  ready  than  perhaps  ever  before  to 
offer  inducements  to  hold  their  people  at  home 
to  assist  in  filling  up  the  broken  lines  of  workers 
so  hideously  shattered  by  the  war  we  are  now 
witnessing  seems  probable.  Even  if  these  people 
of  the  Old  World  should  come  to  us  in  greater 
numbers  than  ever,  those  who  know  best  the 


234  American  Ideals 

growing  needs  of  this  land  for  labor  of  all  kinds, 
and  also  recognize  the  increasing  number  of 
ameliorating  and  educative  agencies  at  work  to 
care  for  the  stranger  within  our  gates,  are  not  as 
apprehensive  of  the  results  as  are  some  of  our 
fleeting  visitors. 

There  is,  moreover,  the  past  ability  of  this 
country  to  bring  this  foreign  material  into  new 
adaptation  to  our  institutions  and  life  in  a 
manner  indubitably  rapid  and  unique.  No 
foreigner  can  quite  understand  it,  and  many  an 
American  does  not  stop  to  reason  out  the  matter 
or  to  explain  the  suddenness  with  which  the 
leaven  of  Americanism  begins  to  mold  the  im 
migrant  when  it  gets  a  chance  at  him  in  com 
paratively  small  groups  or  individually.  The 
story  is  told  of  two  Irish  and  English  immigrants 
coming  into  New  York  Harbor  on  the  Fourth  of 
July.  When  the  Englishman  remarked  to  his 
fellow  prospective  American,  "What  is  that 
noise  we  hear?"  the  Irishman  replied,  "We're 
celebratin'  the  day  we  licked  ye."  The  atmos 
phere  of  public  opinion,  the  newspaper  in  its 
varied  languages,  and  the  willingness  of  the  new 
comer  to  be  transformed  as  soon  as  possible  for 
his  own  good,  are  all  coi*ducive  to  a  quick  stamp 
ing  process  in  the  stimulating  environment  of  a 


Attitude  Toward  the  Immigrant       235 

progressive  civilization.  That  the  American 
type  has  become  more  or  less  fixed,  and  that  the 
hordes  of  immigrants  have  in  the  past  not  been 
able  to  radically  or  suddenly  sweep  it  out  of 
existence,  is  a  reason  for  the  belief  that  it  will 
stand  the  test  of  the  years  ahead  with  perhaps 
even  greater  tax  upon  its  powers. 

The  dangers,  however,  are  great  enough  even 
at  the  best,  both  to  the  immigrant  himself,  be 
ginning  anew  with  the  loosened  restraints, 
his  national  habits  and  his  priest  left  behind, 
feeling  himself  often  "a  tossing  atom  in  a 
seething  crowd,"  and  also  to  the  Republic  from 
the  congested  and  often  unattended  masses  of 
peasants  from  Europe  thrown  into  a  swarm  of 
industrial  or  mining  laborers,  losing  their  guid 
ing  stars  of  the  Old  World  before  they  even 
glimpse  the  orbits  around  which  their  new  world 
is  swinging. 

The  hope  of  a  successful  solution  of  this  vexed 
problem  lies  in  something  more  than  the  "eternal 
vigilance"  that  passively  believes  we  can  some 
how  accomplish  the  miraculous  by  our  wonderful 
civilization.  A  great  many  of  the  people  of 
this  country  must  begin  to  feel  a  new  and  a 
different  kind  of  obligation  to  the  foreigner  if 
we  are  really  to  succeed  in  making  him  what  he 


236  American  Ideals 

may  become  in  this  land  of  opportunity.  It 
means  ever-increasingGovernment  attention  and 
official  sympathy  in  rules  and  laws  executed  for 
individuals  as  well  as  for  a  herd  at  Ellis  Island; 
it  means  a  vastly  enlarged  program  of  education 
for  adults  as  for  children.  It  involves  meeting 
the  foreigner  at  the  water's  edge  and  following 
him  closely  into  every  state  and  construction 
camp  of  his  industrial  work-a-day  world;  it 
means  more  personal  attention  to  his  social  and 
religious  and  sentimental  nature  than  we  have 
yet  even  meditated;  it  means  that  large  numbers 
of  our  people  must  give  up  a  life  work  to  the 
study  and  service  needed  to  prepare  these  eager 
and  often  able  men  and  women,  whom  we  do  not 
know  except  under  the  somewhat  demeaning 
title  of  "immigrant,"  to  take  their  citizenship 
papers  with  a  new  sense  of  obligation  to  become 
un-hyphenated  and  unequivocal  adherents  to 
their  adopted  citizenship. 

Surveys  and  Immigration  Commissions  and 
Americanization  Days  and  "Civic  Rituals'*  are 
good,  but  they  will  of  themselves  fail  to  Ameri 
canize  the  foreigner.  The  two  things  that  are 
imperatively  needed  at  present  are  new  and 
truer  beliefs  in  the  character  and  accomplish 
ment  of  the  new  citizen  on  the  part  of  native- 


Attitude  Toward  the  Immigrant       237 

born  American  men  and  women,  and  in  the 
second  place  actual  workers  rather  than  theo 
rists  about  work. 

I  quote  from  a  letter  written  to  me  by  Dr. 
Peter  Roberts,  one  of  the  men  who  has  pioneered 
much  of  the  splendid  service  at  the  port  cities, 
and  who  has  also  assisted  in  the  preparation  of 
the  foreigner,  even  as  far  back  as  his  homeland 
and  embarking  point,  for  the  new  conditions 
awaiting  him: 

The  great  need  as  relating  to  the  immigrant  is 
that  American-born  men  may  understand  and  fully 
comprehend  the  meaning  of  democracy.  Prejudice 
against  the  foreigner  is  too  common,  indifference 
to  his  well-being  is  prevalent,  and  in  scores  of  com 
munities  a  practical  program  for  the  assimilation 
of  immigrants  is  an  impossibility  because  of  the  pre 
judice  of  Americans.  To  remove  this  antipathy,  to 
convince  the  native  born  that  the  immigrant  has 
possibilities  if  he  is  only  given  a  chance,  is  the  great 
work  that  needs  to  be  done  to-day  in  America. 

The  second  great  need  is  to  convince  the  govern 
ment  of  every  state  where  the  immigration  problem 
is  acute,  as  well  as  the  Federal  Government,  that  it  is 
unjust  to  tax  the  alien  without  investing  in  him 
something  that  will  make  him  a  good  citizen  of  the 
United  States.  I  do  not  see  how  patriotic  Americans 
who  know  the  need  of  immigrants  can  complacently 
contemplate  a  fund  of  ten  millions  of  dollars  taken 


238  American  Ideals 

out  of  the  pockets  of  poor  immigrants  coming  to 
this  country,  and  not  demand  that  this  fund  be  used 
for  the  education  and  the  assimilation  of  the  alien. 

A  sympathetic  effort  is  also  needed  to  induce  aliens 
who  have  been  in  the  country  five  or  more  years  to 
become  identified  with  the  nation.  There  is  need  of 
a  modification  of  the  law  admitting  aliens  to  natural 
ization,  giving  an  opportunity  to  character,  amount 
of  property  accumulated,  and  record  of  industrial 
efficiency  in  any  reliable  plant  to  count  in  the  ex 
amination.  It  is  a  mistake  to  believe  that  aliens 
seeking  entrance  into  our  family  are  desirable  if  only 
they  can  write  their  names,  read  English,  and  know 
something  about  our  Constitution. 

The  putting  of  these  ideas  and  many  others 
relative  to  the  foreigner  into  active  operation,  in 
some  parts  of  our  land  at  least,  gives  hope  of  a 
wider  nation-wide  service  for  alien  adults  as  well 
as  for  children  of  foreigners.  The  work  of  the 
Educational  Alliance  for  the  Jews  from  Russia, 
Galicia,  and  Poland  is  notable  by  its  emphasis 
upon  the  family  life  of  the  immigrants,  and  also 
by  its  attention  to  religious  instruction,  which 
it  is  a  peril  to  omit  when  dealing  with  the  aliens. 
The  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  is 
teaching  30,000  immigrants  in  classes,  and  is 
reaching  ten  times  this  number  through  its 
lectures  and  entertainments.  The  Association 


Attitude  Toward  the  Immigrant       239 

has  also  thirteen  European  secretaries  serving 
immigrants  in  foreign  ports,  and  twelve  secre 
taries  are  at  work  with  immigrants  in  the  North 
American  ports.  The  enlistment  of  one  thou 
sand  college  students,  most  of  them  in  engineer 
ing  courses  in  our  universities,  as  volunteer 
teachers  and  helpers  among  these  newly  arrived 
peoples,  is  also  to  be  credited  to  the  work  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Associations. 

It  is  in  the  large  cities  especially  that  Amer 
ican  ideals  are  most  alarmingly  threatened  by 
the  mass  of  undigested  foreign  elements.  There 
is  72  per  cent,  of  the  immigrant  population 
now  in  the  cities  of  our  country,  drawn  there 
largely  by  the  opportunities  of  industrial  work. 
In  New  York,  for  example,  58  per  cent,  of  its 
males  of  voting  age  were  born  on  foreign  soil, 
and  only  38  per  cent,  of  this  immigrant  popula 
tion  is  naturalized.  In  other  words,  we  have  as 
our  "naturalization  problem"  in  the  American 
metropolis  510,702  men  who  are  not  held  by 
citizenship  from  the  engagement  in  a  score  of 
things  inimical  to  good  government,  if  not 
tending  toward  violent  socialism  and  some 
thing  resembling  anarchy  if  their  leadership 
is  sufficiently  unscrupulous. 

The  need  of  grappling  with  the  problem  by  the 


240  American  Ideals 

forces  of  an  entire  city  and  the  success  attendant 
upon  such  unified  activity  are  revealed  in  the 
excellent  work  which  is  now  being  accomplished 
in  the  city  of  Cleveland  through  the  leadership 
of  the  Cleveland  Immigration  League,  which 
has  been  the  means  of  bringing  into  being  a 
Municipal  Immigration  Bureau  as  a  part  of 
the  Division  of  Employment  in  the  Department 
of  Public  Welfare.  The  Immigration  League  — 
composed  of  representatives  of  the  Board  of 
Education,  public  libraries,  headworkers  of 
settlement  houses,  superintendents  of  various 
city  missionary  societies,  secretaries  of  the 
Young  Men's  and  Young  Women's  Christian 
Associations,  together  with  the  officers  of  foreign 
societies,  judges  and  clerks  of  the  courts  of 
naturalization,  and  professors  in  the  local 
universities — took  upon  itself  the  ideal,  "to 
assist  the  immigrant  to  solve  his  own  problem/' 
This  League  found  various  agencies  doing  good 
work  along  separate  and  almost  entirely  inde 
pendent  lines,  with  no  definite  program  for  the 
entire  city.  Its  efforts  have  been  successful  in 
increasing  by  200  per  cent,  the  attendance  in 
the  citizenship  classes  of  the  "coming  Ameri 
can"  in  this  city  whure  74.8  per  cent,  of  the 
population  are  foreign  born.  In  the  study  of 


Attitude  Toward  the  Immigrant       241 

the  question  the  League  found  certain  condi 
tions  existing  in  connection  with  the  arrival  of 
immigrants  at  the  railroad  stations,  and  in  the 
treatment  of  these  people  by  different  organiza 
tions  calling  for  the  cooperation  of  the  municipal 
forces  of  the  city,  and  in  1913  the  Municipal 
Immigration  Bureau  was  formed  and  joined 
with  the  League  in  five  branches  of  activity. 

Depot  work  has  developed  until  12,426 
foreigners  have  been  met  in  a  single  year  at  the 
station  and  assisted  in  finding  proper  location. 
A  suggestive  hint  in  connection  with  the  work  has 
been  the  statement  of  the  cab  drivers  who  have 
borne  witness  that  their  revenue,  largely  through 
overcharges  to  these  people,  ignorant  of  our  cus 
toms,  has  been  decreased  about  75  per  cent. 

The  employment  work  has  had  the  cooperation 
of  the  State  Industrial  Commission  and  main 
tains  a  State-Cities  Free  Labor  Exchange,  and 
the  Municipal  Employment  Bureau  which  has 
cared  for  the  foreign  labor  has  been  brought  into 
connection  with  the  Municipal  Civil  Service  Law. 

A  Department  of  Information  and  Complaints 
has  issued  an  "Immigrant  Guide"  of  twenty- 
seven  pages  published  in  nine  foreign  languages, 
the  demand  for  which  calls  for  two  editions 
totaling  70,000  copies.  This  department  has 


242  American  Ideals 

investigated  and  settled  in  a  single  year  887 
cases  of  complaint  against  steamship  agencies, 
notaries  public,  private  employment  bureaus, 
and  similar  institutions  which  have  preyed  upon 
these  new  citizens. 

In  education,  where  perhaps  the  greatest  ad 
vance  and  the  strategic  point  of  influence  is  to 
be  found,  a  plan  of  cooperation  formed  in  con 
nection  with  the  Board  of  Education  has  brought 
about  special  training  courses  for  teachers  in 
methods  of  instruction  to  immigrants  and  the  en 
largement  of  the  elementary  public  night  schools, 
with  an  increase  in  these  schools  of  44  per  cent. 

The  opportunities  have  been  increased  for 
naturalization  through  night  sessions  at  the 
clerk's  office  of  naturalization  which  has  meant 
the  saving  of  from  $2  to  $6  per  applicant  on 
account  of  opening  the  possibilities  to  apply  at 
night  rather  than  lose  a  day's  work.  During 
the  year  1914,  i>574  immigrants  applied  to  this 
agency  for  their  naturalization  papers,  and 
2,960  certificates  of  naturalization  as  diplomas 
were  issued  to  newly  naturalized  citizens  at  the 
citizenship  receptions. 

Not  least  important  is  the  course  on  methods 
held  every  week  in  the  offices  of  the  Immigration 
Bureau  where  social  workers,  together  with 


Attitude  Toward  the  Immigrant       243 

those  interested  in  the  subject,  speak  and  make 
reports  and  discuss  matters  in  connection  with  a 
systematic  publicity  campaign  now  being  carried 
on  through  the  newspapers. 

It  is  with  such  agencies  which  are  beginning  to 
assist  on  a  large  scale  the  immigrant  to  under 
stand  the  country  to  which  he  has  joined  his 
allegiance,  as  well  as  to  aid  the  American  to  se 
cure  the  point  of  view  of  the  immigrant,  that  we 
must  look  for  the  solution  of  this  large  problem. 
An  idea  of  the  way  in  which  individuals  are  de 
voting  virtually  a  life  work  to  the  assistance  of 
these  people  is  brought  out  by  the  following 
which  I  quote  from  a  letter  from  Mr.  W.  P. 
Waller,  who  is  at  present  the  General  Secretary 
of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  in 
Akron,  Ohio,  and  who  began  his  investigation 
and  work  for  the  foreigner  in  the  city  of  Cam 
bridge,  Massachusetts: 

During  the  last  fiscal  year  we  had  enrolled  1,525 
scholars.  The  average  age  of  these  men  was  about 
twenty-five.  Over  152  were  aided  in  taking  out  their 
final  citizenship  papers,  which  makes  a  total  of  300 
in  the  last  two  years.  I  find  that  the  men  who  apply 
for  their  papers  are  entirely  ignorant  of  American 
history,  the  character  of  our  great  men,  and  other 
essential  features  which  are  so  necessary  to  be  under 
stood  if  our  nation  is  to  be  truly  a  democratic  one. 


244  American  Ideals 

On  the  other  hand,  I  find  that  every  one  of  them  is 
most  eager  to  learn  these  facts.  There  is  a  decidedly 
independent  spirit  among  them,  and  with  the  right 
kind  of  instruction  and  development  of  public  sym 
pathy  toward  them,  I  am  certain  that  they  should 
prove  of  very  great  value  to  the  strength  of  the  na 
tion.  The  attitude  of  the  American  people  toward 
the  immigrant  has  been  one  of  indifference,  and  some 
times  worse  than  that — an  attitude  of  disdain.  We 
have  relegated  them  to  live  in  the  worst  sections  of 
our  cities;  we  have  placed  upon  them  the  most 
menial  labors  of  our  commonwealths.  In  fact,  we 
have  disregarded  almost  all  of  the  laws  which  we 
know  must  be  obeyed  in  order  to  produce  clean, 
strong,  moral  beings. 

To  my  question  to  Mr.  Waller  regarding  the 
problem  of  increasing  immigration  and  its 
dangers,  he  replied: 

The  problem  of  immigration  is  an  economic  one, 
and  I  believe  the  economic  conditions  will  control 
the  ebb  and  flow.  In  any  case,  America  should  bear 
its  share  of  the  world's  burden. 

In  relation  to  what  the  immigrant  has  done 
for  New  England  and  our  country  generally  I 
quote  the  following: 

New  England  is  rapidly  becoming  farmed  by 
immigrants.  Native  Americans  left  New  England 


Attitude  Toward  the  Immigrant       245 

soil  practically  on  the  "junk  heap."  The  Italians, 
Portuguese,  and  many  men  from  Southeastern 
Europe  have  taken  up  the  work  discarded  by  Ameri 
cans  and  are  making  grass  to  grow  where  weeds 
flourished,  trees  to  bloom  where  old  decayed  trunks 
marred  the  horizon.  This  speaks  volumes  for  the 
value  of  the  immigrant.  If  we  turn  to  industry,  or 
to  our  great  transcontinental  railways,  we  cannot  see 
a  single  mile  of  track,  a  single  car,  a  single  train  in 
motion,  without  realizing,  if  we  are  thoughtful,  that 
in  a  very  large  measure  the  immigrant  has  made 
possible  this  great  progress  by  reason  of  his  willing 
ness  to  work  under  conditions  that  the  ordinary 
American  workman  would  refuse  to  accept. 

Quite  apart  from  our  great  mass  of  immigrants 
from  Central  and  Southern  Europe,  whom  we 
consider  only  as  "hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of 
water, "  there  is  a  smaller  but  most  important 
contingent  that  we  should  recognize  for  the  sake 
of  the  artistic  values  which  they  bring  to  us. 

While  visiting  in  old  Nuremburg  I  was  watch 
ing  one  day  a  famous  wood  carver  lovingly 
fashioning  the  wooden  draperies  on  the  statue 
of  a  Madonna.  When  he  had  finished  the  deli 
cate  work,  which  revealed  the  developed  talent 
of  a  lifetime  of  devoted  artisanship,  he  turned 
and  said,  "You  are  from  America;  I  have  a  son 
in  America."  I  asked  him  what  his  son  was 


246  American  Ideals 

doing.  "He  is  working  in  a  furniture  factory," 
said  he,  "fitting  the  arms  upon  chairs.  He  is 
not  happy  in  that  new  land  fitting  arms  to  chairs 
because  he  is  the  son  and  the  grandson  and  the 
great-grandson  of  wood  carvers  in  Old  Nurem- 
burg." 

The  old  German's  words  raised  in  my  mind 
the  query,  "Are  we  making  the  most  of  our  im 
migrants  of  artistic  inheritance?"  In  these 
times  of  specialists  and  machine-made  articles, 
in  a  period  when  an  immigrant  is  so  rapidly 
converted  into  a  cog  in  the  wheel  of  our  vast 
industrial  enterprises,  are  we  not  forgetful  that 
some  of  these  men,  at  least,  are  bringing  to  us 
the  heritage  of  great  talent,  which  is  slowly  being 
crushed  beneath  the  wheels  of  our  materialistic 
Juggernaut. 

We  ask  why  the  old  Florentine  goldsmiths 
were  the  greatest  in  the  world,  why  Bernini  has 
never  been  surpassed  as  a  worker  in  gold  and 
silver?  These  Florentine  craftsmen  took  the 
crude  material  and,  with  their  own  creative 
hands,  formed  it  into  the  object  of  their  dream. 
They  saw  not  only  the  beginning  but  the  finished 
product  of  their  hands.  It  had  the  effect  upon 
them  that  the  finished  poem  has  upon  the  soul 
and  the  mind  of  the  poet.  Just  as  truly  as  the 


Attitude  Toward  the  Immigrant       247 

poet  would  have  found  it  impossible  to  have 
created  his  masterpiece  if  to  him  had  been  the 
privilege  of  making  the  first  two  lines  only 
while  other  men  added  their  allotted  lines,  none 
of  them  seeing  the  finished  poem  as  his  own, 
likewise  the  creative  soul  of  the  modern  work 
man  is  scarcely  stirred  by  his  piecemeal  work; 
it  results  in  machine-made  product  and  an 
ambitionless  and  machinelike  man. 

Not  all,  to  be  sure,  not  indeed  even  more  than 
a  small  qualitative  minority  of  these  thousands 
who  annually  seek  American  shores  from  their 
ancient  fatherlands  are  equipped  either  by 
their  inheritance  or  training  to  take  the  chisel, 
the  brush,  or  the  hammer  in  creative,  artistic 
hands.  Yet  no  one  has  watched  that  endless 
stream  of  humanity  flowing  through  the  gates 
of  Ellis  Island  almost  any  day,  without  dis 
covering  here  and  there  in  the  dreamy  eyes  of 
the  Jew,  the  Slav,  or  the  Latin,  the  sleeping 
capacity  of  a  great  artist  or  a  great  workman 
along  individually  constructive  lines.  That  he 
does  not  at  present  find  opportunity  for  the 
expression  of  that  which  is  most  truly  germane 
to  his  aptitude  and  ideals  in  the  heterogeneous 
herding  in  twentieth-century  American  indus 
tries  goes  without  saying. 


248  American  Ideals 

The  lines  of  Robert  Haven  Schauffler,  in  his 
"Scum  of  the  Earth,"  may  be  pondered  with 
benefit: 

Mercy  for  us  who  dare  despise 
Men  in  whose  loins  our  Honor  lies; 
Mothers  of  men  who  shall  bring  to  us 
The  glory  of  Titian,  the  grandson  of  Huss; 
Children  in  whose  frail  arms  shall  rest 
Prophets  arid  singers  and  saints  of  the  West. 

Newcomers  all  from  the  eastern  seas, 

Help  us  incarnate  dreams  like  these, 

Forget,  and  forgive,  that  we  did  you  wrong. 

Help  us  to  father  a  nation,  strong 

In  a  comradeship  of  an  equal  birth, 

In  the  wealth  of  the  richest  bloods  of  earth. 

In  these  days  when  we  are  meeting  these  new 
citizens  with  so  many  various  plans  for  training, 
is  it  not  worth  while  to  consider  the  possibilities 
found  in  this  material  for  a  school  as  yet  un 
heard  of,  a  school  in  which  the  results  of  age-long 
genius  of  Europe  and  Asia  may  be  garnered  for 
fresh  and  larger  achievements?  This  genius 
would  be  expressed  in  forms  diverse  from  that 
in  which  it  was  revealed  in  the  Old  World;  it 
would  be  adapted  naturally  to  the  life  and  en 
vironment  and  institutions  of  the  New  World. 


Attitude  Toward  the  Immigrant       249 

To  disregard  it  or  to  crush  it  by  our  constantly 
accelerated  processes  of  industrial  activity  is  as 
certainly  to  deprive  the  individual  of  his  prime 
incentive  as  it  is  to  rob  America  of  one  of  the 
richest  assets  to  be  derived  from  the  stranger  en 
tering  our  gates. 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  SHADOW  OF  SUCCESS 

I  cannot  call  riches  better  than  the  baggage  of 
virtue;  the  Roman  word  is  better,  "impedimenta," 
for  as  the  baggage  is  to  an  army,  so  is  riches  to  virtue; 
it  cannot  be  spared,  and  left  behind,  but  it  hindereth 
the  march;  yea,  and  the  care  of  it  sometimes  loseth 
or  disturbeth  the  victory;  of  great  riches  there  is  no 
real  use,  except  it  be  in  the  distribution;  the  rest  is 
but  conceit. 

BACON. 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  SHADOW  OF  SUCCESS 

IT  MIGHT  seem  inopportune  to  treat  of  the  weak 
nesses  of  a  nation  when  the  stones  of  that  nation's 
building  are  still  leaping  to  find  their  places 
in  the  unfinished  structure,  and  while  the  sha 
dows  of  our  forefathers  are  still  lying  upon  our 
path.  As  it  is,  however,  in  the  moving,  easily 
changed  growth  of  youth,  while  his  faults  and 
follies  are  entangled  with  his  virtues,  before  age 
has  given  the  set  to  habits,  that  one  finds  both 
attraction  and  possibility;  so  in  national  life  we 
do  well  to  test  the  structure  material  while  it  is 
still  in  hand,  choosing  and  refusing  as  we  build. 
Here,  as  in  other  phases  of  American  history, 
the  secret  of  her  failures  lies  imbedded  in  her 
success;  her  failures  are  the  shadows  of  her 
success.  The  hour  of  prosperity  is  the  hour 
of  danger  in  the  United  States;  it  is  the  hour  in 
which  to  consider  such  weaknesses  as  easy-going 
complacency — trusting  in  a  kind  of  shadowy 
optimism  and  a  blind  sense  of  luck — the  in- 
253 


254  American  Ideals 

difference  to  the  inner  light  and  the  worship  of 
contemporaneousness — placing  action  in  the 
room  of  merit — seeking  the  wrong  goal  and  be 
coming  proud  of  the  secondary  thing — sordid 
ideals  of  spending — the  perils  of  the  vacant 
mind — idealizing  of  pleasure  and  forgetting  the 
finesse  of  life  through  the  preoccupation  of  the 
hunt:  these  are  shadows  falling  across  our  pres 
ent-day  prosperity. 

The  weakness  of  American  idealism  gathers 
about  those  dangers  which  are  inclined  to  inhere 
in  republics  where  the  government  is  decided 
by  majority  suffrage. 

Among  the  most  prominent  of  these  national 
inclinations  is  the  tendency  to  break  down  the 
respect  for  law  and  vested  authority;  this  is 
followed  at  times  by  the  evasion  of  the  laws  of 
the  land,  providing  it  can  be  done  safely.  As  an 
old  Pennsylvania  farmer  put  it,  "It's  all  right 
to  get  the  best  of  the  railroad,  providing  you 
don't  get  caught  at  it."  It  is  a  trait  that  re 
sembles  somewhat  the  Oriental's  deceit,  which 
in  the  East  is  regarded  as  a  virtue  and  a  mark  of 
cleverness  as  long  as  it  works,  but  is  instantly 
despised  when  it  fails  to  delude. 

It  must  be  recognized,  however,  that  in  con 
sideration  of  the  scale  upon  which  democracy 


The  Shadow  of  Success  255 

is  being  tried  in  the  United  States,  a  far  more 
extensive  scale  than  that  upon  which  republics 
have  heretofore  existed  in  any  part  of  the  world, 
the  faults  of  indifference  and  a  lack  of  responsi 
bility  relative  to  law  and  order,  though  often 
alarming,  are  not  sufficiently  widespread  or  fla 
grant  to  make  Americans  despair  of  their  cure. 
In  fact,  one  only  needs  to  get  his  fingers  dusty  a 
bit  in  the  examination  of  the  history  even  of  the 
past  fifty  years  to  become  convinced  that  we 
are  making  progress  in  the  matter  of  respect  for 
law.  Some  of  the  things  of  the  dead  past  are 
the  "Night  Riders";  the  famous  terrorizing 
Ku-Klux  Klan;  the  Western  train  brigandage, 
led  by  such  outlaws  as  the  notorious  Jesse 
James;  the  "Molly  McGuire"  conspiracy  of 
Pennsylvania;  and  the  fearsome  blood  feuds  of 
Kentucky,  where  even  in  the  ten  years  as  recent 
as  1880  to  1890  it  is  stated  that  fifty  members 
of  a  single  family  met  their  death  in  one  unlaw 
ful  murder  following  another  in  the  trail  of 
barbarous  revenge.  The  "Pinkertons,"  who 
even  in  the  memory  of  this  generation  numbered 
one  thousand  armed  men,  were  called  upon  by 
different  states  to  protect  industries  and  quell 
disturbances  where  the  arm  of  the  law  was  then 
inadequate — these  and  many  other  examples 


256  American  Ideals 

suggestive  of  a  primitive  state  of  authority  have 
passed  largely  into  oblivion  in  the  evolution  of 
the  American  Republic  into  a  firmer  and  more 
truly  law-abiding  democracy. 

In  spite  of  these  encouraging  facts,  notwith 
standing  the  satisfaction  that  the  ruffianlike 
sheriff  of  twenty-five  years  ago,  with  his  swash 
buckler  cowboys,  is  chiefly  a  reality  in  our  melo 
dramatic  moving  pictures,  the  germ  of  disregard 
for  law  has  not  been  entirely  eradicated;  the 
snake  of  sedition,  forthat  it  truly  is,  has  not  been 
killed  even  if  it  has  been  scotched;  we  are  not 
out  of  the  woods  even  though  we  can  see  the 
light  in  the  clearing. 

Ex-President  Taft,  speaking  at  Yale  in  1906, 
said,  "I  grieve  to  say  that  the  administration  of 
the  criminal  law  is  in  nearly  all  the  states  of  the 
Union  a  disgrace  to  our  civilization/'  And 
again  in  the  year  1906,  Mr.  Taft  reiterated  his 
convictions  in  these  words  before  the  Pennsyl 
vania  State  Bar  Association: 

No  one  can  examine  the  statistics  of  crime  in 
this  country  and  of  successful  prosecutions  without 
realizing  that  the  administration  of  the  criminal  law 
is  a  disgrace  to  our  civilization,  and  without  tracing 
to  this  condition,  as  a  moving  and  overwhelming 
cause  for  them,  the  horrible  lynchings  that  are  com- 


The  Shadow   of  Success  257 

mitted  the  country  over,  with  all  the  danger  of  in 
justice  and  exhibition  of  fiendish  cruelty  which  such 
occurrences  involve. 

Not  only  is  this  feeling  of  uncertainty  relative 
to  the  sense  of  responsible  citizenship  shared  by 
many  of  the  most  far-sighted  American  jurists 
and  business  men,  whose  position  affords  op 
portunities  to  judge  of  our  failures,  but  James 
Bryce,  than  whom  no  foreigner  has  been  more 
astute  or  sympathetic  in  his  close  scrutiny  of 
the  governing  agencies  of  the  United  States, 
in  his  "American  Commonwealth"  sums  up  his 
discussions  of  our  shortcomings  with  these 
words: 

This  inquiry  has  shown  us  that  of  the  faults  tra 
ditionally  attributed  to  democracy  one  only  is  fairly 
chargeable  on  the  United  States;  that  is  to  say,  is 
manifested  there  more  conspicuously  than  in  the 
constitutional  monarchies  of  Europe.  This  is  the 
disposition  to  be  lax  in  enforcing  laws  disliked  by 
any  large  part  of  the  population,  to  tolerate  breaches 
of  public  order,  and  to  be  too  indulgent  to  offenders 
generally. 

While  such  things  as  the  Thaw,  the  Becker, 
and  the  Frank  cases,  with  their  long  drawn-out 
and  uncertain  litigation,  their  often  sickening 


258  American  Ideals 

detail,  confront  us;  while  such  abominable  acts 
as  the  murder  of  Frank  still  occur;  while  it 
is  still  necessary  to  call  out  the  Government 
troops  to  quell  Colorado  mine  troubles;  while 
gunmen  still  get  their  victims  with  amazing 
frequency  in  perhaps  the  best  policed  city  in 
the  country,  it  must  be  realized  that  there  is 
something  inherently  weak  down  below  the 
surface  of  these  abnormal  expressions  of  dis 
order,  some  failure  in  the  sense  of  citizenship 
in  the  general  body  of  which  these  enormities 
are  but  the  sad  symptoms. 

Were  further  contemporary  signs  of  our 
political  unhealthfulness  needed  we  might  con 
sider  the  inadequacy  of  the  suffrage  laws  in 
certain  of  the  Gulf  States  relative  to  the  negro; 
the  corruption  in  the  State  of  Florida  in  recent 
years  by  a  financier  who  was  confessedly  in 
control  of  certain  divisions  of  the  state  legisla 
ture  for  his  personal  advantage;  the  connivance 
of  both  officials  and  people  in  recent  matters 
of  racing,  speculations  in  stocks,  railroads,  and 
department  stores;  in  the  dead  letter  condition 
of  certain  liquor  laws,  and  especially  the  trav 
esty  of  alleged  execution  of  drinking  legislation 
in  some  of  the  "prohibition  states,"  where  the 
very  mention  of  the  word  "prohibition"  is  to 


The  Shadow  of  Success  259 

cause  a  laugh,  so  inadequate  is  it  thought  to  be 
to  stop  by  law  the  sale  of  spirits.  When  a 
governor  of  the  Empire  State  is  impeached  for 
crooked  practices,  and  when  another  governor 
is  called  to  make  the  fight  of  his  political  career 
on  the  plain  issue  of  the  enforcement  of  laws 
that  are  already  on  the  state  statutes  regarding 
horse  racing  and  betting,  is  there  not  afforded 
evidence  somewhat  incontrovertible  that  the 
law  is  not  an  authority  par  excellence  in  the 
American  mind? 

There  is  also  the  drift  toward  a  laxity  of 
discipline  and  blundering  service  in  many  an 
institution  of  public  character.  In  our  stores 
and  on  our  street  conveyances  we  find  a 
lack  of  respect  and  careful  attention  to  details 
on  the  part  of  overworked  employees.  In  our 
post  offices,  in  our  railroad  ticket  offices,  in 
restaurants  and  hotels,  one  could  pick  up  a 
volume  of  testimony  and  witness  to  the  fact 
that,  through  hurry  or  heedlessness  or  the  grow 
ing  sway  of  professionalism  in  public  and  busi 
ness  affairs,  the  sense  of  personal  responsibility 
is  weakened.  Europeans  are  sure  to  accuse  us 
of  the  trait  of  being  long-suffering  to  the  point  of 
weakness,  and  the  newspapers  and  public 
officials  of  many  a  land  supposedly  less  jealous 


260  American  Ideals 

of  its  rights,  would  be  flooded  with  letters  of 
complaint  for  breaches  of  service  to  be  expected 
as  a  matter  of  course  from  servants  of  the  people 
in  public  institutions. 

There  is  a  feeling  all  too  common  that  it  is 
in  no  wise  dishonorable  to  do  the  daily  task  with 
the  eye  on  the  clock  rather  than  with  a  pride 
of  workmanship  soaring  above  the  feeling  of 
"getting  home."  Men  will  tell  you  that  it  needs 
a  stand-up  fight  to  get  orders  out  on  time  in 
many  a  business  house,  and  the  man  is  best 
served  who  makes  the  most  determined  and 
unceasing  demands  for  immediacy.  A  prom 
inent  builder  told  me  recently  that  he  was  out 
of  pocket  hundreds  of  dollars  yearly  by  reason 
of  the  necessity  of  sending  back  workmen  to 
finish  incomplete  or  faulty  construction.  There 
is  a  tendency  to  undertake  more  work  than  the 
firm  can  do  well,  and  this  fills  the  air  with  a 
constant  sense  of  pushing  on  to  the  next  job, 
and  depending  upon  the  owner  to  "make  a 
kick,"  which  he  is  usually  obliged  to  do  if  he  is 
to  receive  quid  pro  quo  for  his  money.  It  is 
needless  to  point  out  the  fatal  twist  in  the  self- 
respecting  sense  of  responsibility  which  this 
doing  of  work  so  that  It  will  pass,  yet  not  so 
well  but  that  much  of  it  will  need  doing  over, 


The  Shadow  of  Success  261 

gives  to  the  workman.  It  is  making  the  stand 
ard  of  service  depend,  not  upon  excellence  of 
work,  but  upon  the  good  nature  of  Americans. 

That  labor  organizations  have  been  partially 
responsible  for  this  lack  of  personal  obligation 
in  one's  work,  making  an  eight-hour  day  rather 
than  a  perfect  product  the  norm  of  their  activi 
ties,  is  probably  true.  That  the  previous  grind 
of  the  sweatshop  and  the  inhuman  dominance 
of  wealth  in  vast  trusts  and  huge  impersonal 
industrial  organizations  was  the  prior  cause  of 
this  sordid  emphasis  of  the  trades  unions,  is 
also  true. 

Meanwhile  the  "dear  public"  pays  the  piper 
for  the  absence  in  many  a  phase  of  our  life  of 
the  consideration  due  to  the  average  house 
holder  and  citizen.  There  is  running  through 
the  democracy,  as  a  counter  to  the  feeling  that 
we  are  often  imposed  upon,  the  idea  that  a  nation 
gets  as  good  government  and  service  as  it  de 
serves;  anyhow,  that  we  are  making  our  own 
institutions,  political  as  well  as  private  and  pub 
lic;  and  this  satisfaction  closes  our  mouths  when 
we  would  speak  out  against  the  cajolery  of  the 
politician  and  the  vexing  incompetency  of  the 
tradesman. 

Behind  this  somewhat  unconscious  sense  that 


262  American  Ideals 

we  can  change  things  if  we  will,  there  is  a  dis 
inclination  in  the  United  States  to  stir  up  trouble 
and  a  not  pronounced  sympathy  with  those 
who  are  too  forward  in  pointing  out  weaknesses. 
We  have  in  the  American  a  temperament  of 
quick  emotionalism  and  one  that  is  ready  to  take 
up  with  the  last  and  best  new  thing  wherever 
he  finds  it,  moving  about  without  let  or  hin 
drance  in  many  spheres  of  his  freedom;  but  yet 
in  respect  to  the  toleration  of  abuses  he  is  one  of 
the  most  lenient  and  conservative  of  persons. 
As  a  rule  he  finds  it  is  a  safe  working  policy  to 
bear  the  ills  he  knows  rather  than  flying  to  ills 
he  knows  not  of,  which  may  exist  quite  likely 
on  the  other  side  of  his  protest.  He  resembles 
his  countryman,  Josh  Billings,  who  said  that  if 
when  walking  in  the  woods  he  encountered  a 
snake  hole,  he  invariably  turned  out  and  went 
some  distance  around,  saying  to  himself,  "That 
hole  belongs  to  that  snake." 

In  this  shunning  of  disagreeable  responsi 
bility  the  American  is  not  unlike  the  China 
man,  who  if  he  drag  a  drowning  man  out  of  the 
water,  according  to  the  usage  of  the  land,  he 
would  be  accused  quite  likely  of  having  tried 
to  murder  the  man,  aiid  if  he  were  fortunate 
enough  to  escape  with  his  head,  he  would  prob- 


The  Shadow  of  Success  263 

ably  have  to  assume  the  man's  future  support. 
The  dweller  in  the  United  States  dislikes  to 
get  into  trouble  if  he  can  avoid  it;  hence  he 
often  takes  the  easiest  way,  becoming  a  first- 
class  example  of  unconcerned,  even  if  pained, 
indifference.  Furthermore,  has  he  not  the  news 
papers?  and  is  there  anything  in  the  heavens 
above,  the  earth  beneath,  or  the  waters  under  the 
earth  that  the  American  newspaper  fails  to  make 
public,  and  in  such  a  wealth  and  luxury  of  detail 
and  itemization  as  to  almost  relieve  the  ordi 
nary  individual  of  duty  for  the  delayed  and 
delinquent  processes  of  law  and  order! 

Another  shadow  of  our  American  idealism 
is  in  the  region  of  that  good  that  becomes  the 
enemy  of  the  best;  I  refer  to  the  peace-at-any- 
price  talk  and  activity,  especially  to  the  attempt 
to  enlist  our  youth  in  a  kind  of  anti-enlistment 
sentiment  savoring  considerably  of  fanaticism 
if  it  misses  being  called  by  a  stronger  word. 
While  the  weakness  of  the  Republic  in  the 
enforcement  of  laws  is  due  to  the  citizen's  easy 
going  belief  in  the  democratic  order  of  which 
he  feels  himself  an  integral  part,  this  extreme 
advocacy  of  peace  on  any  terms  is  a  distinct 
foe  to  the  spirit  of  self-respecting  and  vibrant 
democracy.  It  not  only  smacks  of  treason  to 


264  American  Ideals 

the  spirit  of  devotion  to  law,  but  it  is  an  egre 
gious  misconception  of  the  condition  of  advance 
of  human  nature.  It  is  a  blind  attempt  to 
legislate  into  being  a  state  or  condition  which 
must  first  exist  in  the  human  heart,  having  its 
secret  and  propelling  cause  far  below  all  our 
ingenious  panaceas.  No  sane  and  worthy 
citizen  wants  anything  but  peace  among  the 
nations,  as  we  all  want  peace  between  capital 
and  labor;  but  as  in  the  latter  case  we  very 
sensibly  recognize  the  limiting  media  in  which 
industrial  peace  must  be  brought  about — the 
unregenerate  nature  of  man — in  the  former 
matter  we  go  about  our  Utopian  peace  tinker 
ing  as  though  evil  and  wrong-doing  were  ghosts 
of  a  distant  generation,  long  since  laid  by  what 
we  are  pleased  to  call  modern  civilization. 

As  a  sad  matter  of  fact,  while  it  has  accom 
plished  much  in  changing  and  reforming  the 
outside  of  the  nature  of  the  twentieth-century 
man,  civilization  has  not  changed  radically  the 
inside  of  him,  and  unfortunately,  or  sometimes 
fortunately,  it  is  the  inner  man  that  determines 
the  existence  of  peace  or  war.  It  is  not  to  sup 
port  or  to  approve  of  an  evil  to  acknowledge  its 
existence,  but  to  fail  to  face  the  fact  that  hu 
manity  writes  its  history  in  one  long  story  of 


The  Shadow  of  Success  265 

struggle,  not  unmixed  in  any  long  period  with 
bloodshed,  is  both  to  be  ignorant  of  the  past, 
and  what  is  more  to  the  point  just  now,  it  is  to 
neglect  to  recognize  the  constitution  of  mankind 
in  its  present  reactions.  The  fight  against  sin 
and  wrong,  as  we  see  it,  is  the  most  common  act 
of  humanity  and  its  trail  runs  red  across  all  the 
life  of  men.  All  literature  and  all  civilization 
we  know  or  care  about  is  colored  by  it  both  in  its 
sacred  and  secular  phases.  It  was  by  the 
memory  of  their  battles  that  Pericles  and  De 
mosthenes  adjured  the  Athenians.  Did  not 
Horace  boast  that  he  had  been  a  soldier,  non 
sine  gloria  ?  Milton  in  one  of  his  most  sublime 
sonnets  said,  "Peace  hath  her  victories  no  less 
renowned  than  war. "  Our  very  hymns  and 
sacred  chants  are  war  songs,  and  the  Book  "our 
mothers  read"  is  filled  with  injunctions  to  "fight 
the  good  fight  of  faith,"  and  to  follow  those 
heroes  who  sailed  through  bloody  seas  to  win 
the  prize.  One  of  the  most  popular  hymns  of 
our  American  youth  is,  "The  Son  of  God  Goes 
Forth  to  War."  We  may  dream  peace  and  pray 
devoutly  for  peace  on  earth  and  good  will  be 
tween  men,  but  at  the  same  time  we  must  not 
shut  our  eyes  to  facts  as  they  are,  nor  would  we 
be  sensible  peacemakers  if  we  deluded  ourselves 


266  American  Ideals 

into  thinking  that  we  can  sweep  into  the  light 
of  a  new  and  younger  day,  before  the  shadows  of 
conflict  and  belief  in  war  have  been  driven  from 
the  inner  shrines  of  human  thinking. 

If  we  are  at  all  impressed  by  recent  events  we 
will  find  it  difficult  to  evade  the  fact  that  in  the 
hearts  of  a  good  number  of  the  races  of  men 
there  is  still  a  considerable  of  that  commodity 
originally  known  as  moral  depravity,  however 
optimistically  we  may  feel  and  act  in  our  peace 
conferences.  As  between  ourselves  as  individ 
uals,  so  between  ourselves  as  nations,  certain 
things  will  yield  to  arbitration  and  measures  more 
or  less  peaceful;  but  there  are  other  things  deeply 
rooted  in  the  obstinacy  of  the  human  heart, 
that  are  as  difficult  to  settle  without  recourse  to 
physical  pressure  in  our  nation,  where  men  are 
supposed  to  see  alike,  as  they  are  to  adjudicate 
between  nations  with  whom  ideals  vary  widely, 
and  add  to  the  barriers  to  peace. 

Why  did  we  not  arbitrate  our  differences  with 
England  in  the  period  of  the  War  of  the  Revolu 
tion  ?  Because  we  could  not ;  human  nature  was 
against  us.  England  could  not  arbitrate  with 
Germany  in  1914;  human  nature  on  both  sides 
and  on  all  sides  was  too  strong  for  them,  and 
until  we  get  considerable  closer  to  the  millen- 


The  Shadow  of  Success  267 

nium  than  we  are  at  present,  we  must  count  on 
this  doughty  and  often  most  perverse  antagonist 
to  large  unselfish  purposes,  expressed  in  the 
little  word  that  Henry  Drummond  once  said  had 
wandered  out  of  theology  into  life,  the  word  of 
three  burning  letters — S-I-N.  The  shadow  of 
this  small  word  still  looms  dark  and  ominous 
across  the  attempted  successes  of  mankind,  and 
they  reckon  ill  who  forget  it  and  try  to  railroad 
us  into  havens  of  world  peace. 

I  am  reminded  of  an  incident  told  of  a  devoted 
missionary  who  had  experienced  indifferent 
success  in  winning  the  heathen  natives  of  a  dis 
tant  island  to  his  faith,  when  one  day  he  chanced 
upon  the  passage,  "Give  to  every  man  that 
asketh  of  thee;  and  of  him  that  taketh  away  thy 
goods,  ask  them  not  again. "  As  a  last  resort, 
the  good  missionary  tried  this  method  of  preach 
ing.  The  natives  came  to  his  home  admiring 
his  pictures  and  his  books  and  his  furniture,  and 
seeing  his  willingness,  carried  them  all  away 
until  the  poor  man  had  virtually  nothing  left. 
He  then  sat  down  in  his  house  and  waited.  The 
next  day  the  removers  of  the  goods  returned 
bringing  them  all  back  and,  according  to  the 
account,  this  was  the  beginning  of  a  great  re 
vival  in  the  obdurate  heathen  community.  A 


268  American  Ideals 

seemingly  strong  argument  for  peace-at-any- 
price!  The  only  reason  that  this  method  of  mis 
sionary  propaganda  has  not  become  general  in 
difficult  heathen  sections,  lies  in  the  sequel  of  this 
incident,  which  was  told  me  in  the  region  of  this 
event.  The  missionary,  according  to  the  report, 
removed  to  another  field  and  tried  the  same  thing, 
but  in  this  case  the  heathen  kept  the  furniture. 

There  is  no  conclusive  evidence  that  volun 
tary  self-sacrifice  and  unprotected  rights  are  as 
yet  current  or  common  commodities  among 
nations  wanting  property  belonging  to  others. 
In  a  conversation  with  a  British  member  of  the 
Government  of  India,  as  we  sat  comfortably  at 
the  dinner  of  some  foreign  guests  in  Delhi,  I 
proceeded  to  ask  the  stock  question,  whether 
England  would  ever  give  back  India  to  the  East 
Indian?  The  Englishman  replied  with  a  know 
ing  wink,  "Of  course  we  shall  give  India  back. 
Didn't  we  give  back  America  to  you?" 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  join  the  ranks  of  the 
jingoists  or  to  delude  myself  into  thinking  that 
in  our  long  history  of  peace-loving  policies  any 
large  portion  of  the  inhabitants  of  these  United 
States  have  lost  their  pristine  loyalty  and  devo 
tion  to  their  highest  sei^se  of  patriotism.  Even 
our  youth  are  old  enough  to  remember  the  sight 


The  Shadow  of  Success  269 

of  thousands  of  peace-desiring  men  ready  to 
rush  to  arms  at  the  insult  to  our  flag,  crowding 
"the  road  of  death  as  to  a  festival."  I  would 
be  the  last  to  advocate  the  exchange  of  our  vic 
tories  of  peace  in  the  realm  of  industrial  advance 
for  a  nation  of  ironclads  and  ever-absorbing  at 
tention  upon  fortresses  and  militarism,  which 
breed  the  madness  of  the  ruffian  and  the  bully 
among  nations  and  men. 

But  I  would  add  my  voice  against  those  who 
would  set  before  our  nation  a  soft  peace-at-any- 
price  ideal,  for  this  means  when  it  is  grown  a 
weak  passivity  in  the  presence  of  wrong  and 
oppression.  It  means  the  loss  of  power  to  have  a 
part  in  the  great  neutral  counsels  of  mankind; 
it  is  also  a  travesty  on  any  great  religion.  Out 
side  the  comparatively  small  and  uninfluential 
Eastern  mystics  and  medieval  saints  who  have 
solved  the  problem  of  peace  in  the  world  by  giv 
ing  it  up  and  leaving  the  earth  for  the  monastery, 
outside  the  visionaries  and  the  sentimentalists, 
the  high-minded  religious  souls  of  the  world 
have  recognized  the  inevitable  necessity  of 
fighting  evil  with  weapons  best  suited  to  its 
demolition,  since  they  have  discerned  it  as  the 
causal  agency  of  unhappiness  and  the  enemy  of 
every  advance  of  man  to  durable  peace.  The 


270  American  Ideals 

Christian  Scriptures  in  their  wide  sweep  and 
plain  injunction  give  warrant  for  the  use  at 
times  of  the  weapons  of  the  children  of  "dark 
ness"  when  the  issue  is  drawn  against  the  down- 
treading  of  the  weak  and  the  innocent,  and  the 
ruthless  violation  of  homes  and  firesides.  That 
there  are  times  when  war  has  a  greatness  of  its 
own,  and  when  to  die  fighting  is  better  than  to 
live  safe,  when  for  the  truth  we  ought  to  die,  is 
the  truism  of  both  history  and  religion. 

America  is  too  great  a  nation  to  be  satisfied 
with  peace  that  involves  dishonor,  or  a  laying 
down  of  weapons  against  unrighteousness. 
Such  peace  would  choke  her.  It  would  stifle 
the  very  breath  of  her  lofty  and  democratic 
independence  for  which  our  fathers  died.  There 
are  things  far  more  corrosive  and  crushing  than 
war  for  a  principle.  There  are  things  more  poi 
soning  to  a  nation  than  poisoned  gas;  one  of 
them  is  breathing  a  poisoned  patriotism,  buying 
peace  with  a  shattered  self-respect.  There  is  a 
fighting  spirit  all  shining  with  honor,  that  in  the 
high  phrase  of  the  English  poet, 

Blameless  in  victory  stands 

*  *  * 

Shines  with  immaculate  hands; 
Stains  not  peace  with  a  scar. 


The  Shadow  of  Success  271 

We  want  untarnished  peace,  and  when  one 
distant  day,  universal  peace  "shall  lie  like  a 
shaft  of  light  across  the  lands,  and  like  a  line 
of  beams  athwart  the  sea,"  we  are  disposed  to 
believe  that  our  large  free  land  will  have  added 
some  ray  to  that  brightness,  not  by  refusing  a 
hand  over  the  darkness  to  the  oppressed,  but 
by  her  valiant  championship  of  the  Rights  of 
Man,  and  by  saving  others,  saving  herself, 
keeping  in  life  or  in  death  the  sovereign  integrity 
of  her  own  soul. 

Another  shadow  casting  itself  more  or  less 
ominously  over  our  remarkable  successes  is  the 
money  delusion,  as  represented  in  the  tendency 
to  display  and  extravagant  spending.  It  is 
almost  inevitable  that  the  rapid  accumulation 
of  wealth,  united  with  the  excitability  and 
the  love  of  the  picturesque  in  the  American 
character,  should  induce  among  certain  portions 
of  the  population  a  condition  of  self-indul 
gence  and  the  desire  to  show  off  in  the  realm  of 
material  prosperity.  In  this  inclination  toward 
extravagance  and  striving  for  effect,  the  rich 
especially  go  the  Oriental  one  better. 

In  a  recent  account  of  a  wedding,  described 
in  the  columns  of  one  of  the  steadiest  metro 
politan  newspapers,  we  are  regaled  with  two 


2J2  American  Ideals 

long  columns  under  such  headlines  as  the  fol 
lowing: 

$500,000  in  Gifts  at  Wedding. 

Bishop officiates  before  600. 

Six  Hundred  of  Society  Attend. 
Ceremony  in  Palm  Room. 
The  Bridal  Procession. 
The  Wedding  Gifts. 

The  words  standing  out  in  the  account  of  the 
proceedings  are  "the  great  estate  that  extends 
over  4,000  acres/' — "emergency  dispatchers'  of 
fice" — "fourteen  mounted  Deputy  Sheriffs  pa 
trolled  the  estate" — "gifts  of  guests  amounting 
to  $300,000."  The  father's  wedding  gift  to  his 
son,  the  account  goes  on,  was  a  check  for 
$200,000.  "The  bride's  cake  towered  several 
feet  in  height."  Among  the  splendid  presents 
noted  were  "a  superb  string  of  pearls" — "a 
magnificent  stomacher  of  diamonds" — "dia 
mond  sapphire  brooch,"  etc.  Then  after  the 
narration  of  what  the  guests  and  participants 
wore,  in  words  defying  translation,  we  hear 
about  the  private  cars  that  carried  off  the  couple 
and  the  glowing  description  of  their  summer 
home  at  the  seashore,  the  denouement  consisting 
of  a  detailed  list  of  the  "society  people"  present 


The  Shadow  of  Success  273 

— an  inventory  resembling  the  complete  roster  of 
the  "Social  Register." 

The  Arcadian  simplicity  of  John  Alden  and 
Priscilla  would  be  somewhat  jarred  by  such  a 
wedding,  removing  to  a  distant  limbo  of  misty 
forgetfulness  the  days  of  Cotton  Mather  and 
the  era  of  "plain  living  and  high  thinking."  The 
democratic  nature  of  this  profuse  occasion  is 
suggested  withal  by  the  fact  that  the  daughter 
of  a  big  tobacco  merchant  weds  with  the  son 
of  an  old  family  in  Philadelphia,  where  if  any 
where  in  the  United  States  blood  is  revered. 

But  what  objection  should  any  one  have  to 
rich  people  spending  their  money  freely?  Does 
it  not  put  gold  into  circulation?  And  does  it 
not  give  employment  to  all  sorts  of  dressmakers, 
flower  sellers,  and  hordes  of  artisans  and  work 
ing  folk  of  various  classes?  Rich  men  in  a 
community  are  an  asset  and  inducements  are 
justly  held  out  to  them,  especially  by  smaller 
cities  and  towns  because  of  the  benefit  their 
wealth  will  bring  to  the  community. 

No  sane  person  can  have  a  quarrel  with  wealth 
when  it  is  used  with  a  touch  of  communal  or 
unselfish  interest.  Were  it  not  for  the  fact  that 
money  exists  in  large  quantities,  many  an  ideal 
ist  and  apostle  of  art  and  letters  would  starve. 


274  American  Ideals 

Material  is  the  basis  of  the  larger  growing  ideal 
ism  of  America,  and  without  it  there  can  be 
little  hope  of  progress  in  a  democratic  state. 

It  is  the  extravagant  and  vain  and  unpro 
ductive  use  of  wealth,  "riches  wriggling  in 
the  grass  of  inexperience,"  as  Clement  of  Alex 
andria  said  two  thousand  years  ago,  that  forms 
the  menace  to  any  country.  This  employment 
of  money  on  "importunate  inutilities"  more 
than  offsets  any  temporary  economic  advances 
it  may  give  to  a  handful  of  traders  or  artisans 
by  the  baneful  influence  that  the  display  ideal 
exerts  on  people  who  do  not  stop  to  think.  A 
showy  and  costly  wedding  occasion  in  the  United 
States  is  on  much  the  same  plane  with  the 
vast  picturesque  durbar  of  an  East  Indian 
prince,  whose  resplendent  line  of  gayly  and 
richly  caparisoned  elephants,  jeweled  carpets, 
and  ruby  necklaces  are  a  studied  game  to 
delude  the  native  with  exhibitions  of  grandeur. 
They  are  both  caterers  to  the  cult  of  the  second 
best,  they  are  both  representations  of  demi-god 
worship  with  the  real  gods  of  the  higher  civiliza 
tion  in  the  far  background.  The  Indian  prince 
uses  them  to  impress  the  subjects  with  his 
power  of  sovereignty  oT;er  them,  as  the  English 
used  the  great  and  carefully  planned  durbar  at 


The  Shadow  of  Success  275 

Delhi,  when  King  George  visited  India,  with 
deliberate  purpose  of  making  an  indenture 
on  the  show-loving  mind  of  the  native  concern 
ing  the  ruler's  ability  to  rule.  The  difference 
between  the  English  durbar  and  a  flamboyant 
and  costly  American  show  in  a  great  marriage 
or  a  gorgeous  society  event,  is  that  in  one  case 
the  money  is  spent  with  a  deliberate  purpose 
to  deceive  the  natives,  and  in  the  other  it  is 
an  attempt  to  fool  one's  self  or  one's  immediate 
friends.  The  object  of  the  one  was  the  reduc 
tion  of  a  nation  to  tractability  beneath  the 
hand  of  a  governing  race;  the  object  of  the 
other  is  to  add  to  the  personal  vanity  and  the 
spirit  of  self-indulgence,  which  are  usually  quite 
sufficient  before  the  event. 

The  bane  of  spending  in  America  for  physical 
splendor  lies  in  its  effect  upon  the  rank  and  file, 
as  well  upon  the  lowered  ideals  of  the  rich,  since 
the  American  is  dazzled  by  the  display  of  wealth 
as  truly  as  is  the  East  Indian.  When  a  prom 
inent  man  in  the  public  eye  pays  $37,000  a  year 
for  his  apartments,  as  a  certain  official  of  the 
government  is  said  to  do;  when  another  busi 
ness  man  of  wealth  spends  thousands  of  dollars 
to  fit  up  with  costly  decorations  and  furnishings 
brought  from  abroad  a  suite  of  fifteen  rooms  in 


276  American  Ideals 

one  of  the  most  expensive  hostelries  on  Fifth 
Avenue,  rooms  which  he  seldom  uses  except  for 
show  purposes  and  elaborate  dinners  to  his 
friends;  when  a  score  or  two  of  rich  families 
spend  millions  to  keep  up  palatial  residences  in 
various  parts  of  the  country,  some  of  which  are 
hardly  visited  in  a  year;  when  a  certain  lady 
pays  $25,000  merely  for  the  redecoration  of  her 
hotel  apartments,  from  which  she  removed  in 
less  than  six  months;  and  when  with  like  reck 
lessness  money  is  poured  out  like  water  by  the 
old  and  the  nouveau  riche  alike,  to  purchase 
things  whose  values  have  been  inflated  by  shop 
keepers  and  hotel  restaurants  and  automobile 
firms  to  suit  this  penchant  for  the  vainglorious 
tastes  of  the  people  of  wealth — there  is  certain 
to  be  a  reactive  effect  upon  a  naturally  imitative 
people. 

It  is  partly  at  least  because  of  this  example  of 
heedlessness  or  recklessness  with  money  that 
we  find  the  middle  class  mortgaging  their  homes 
and  their  life  insurance  policies,  and  loading 
themselves  with  burdens  of  debt  that  only  a 
miracle  in  the  turn  of  Fortune's  wheel  can  ever 
relieve.  This  lack  of  true  appreciation  of  the 
meaning  of  wealth  sets  up  in  our  country  an 
artificial  standard  for  places  in  which  to  eat  and 


The  Shadow  of  Success  277 

to  recreate,  for  streets  in  which  to  dwell,  and  for 
clothes  to  wear,  that  permeates  more  or  less  all 
grades  of  our  city  life. 

Even  the  wage-earner  receives  a  fillip  from 
this  mania  of  spending  and  wanting  to  show 
others  that  we  spend,  this  lust  of  display  that 
filters  down  through  the  various  ranks  of  so 
ciety.  The  attempt  to  appear  prosperous  is  a 
deadly  germ  in  America.  Who  of  us  does  not 
know  clerks  who  spend  a  week's  wages  on  a 
theatre  and  the  after  exercises  thereof,  simply 
because  the  young  man  is  determined  that  his 
lady  may  not  call  him  "cheap,"  or  because  he 
does  not  have  the  nerve  to  be  sensible? 

Our  shop  girls  and  working  youth  in  the  stores 
and  banks  dress  so  well  as  to  make  distinctions 
between  the  poor  and  well-to-do  scarcely  recog 
nizable  so  far  as  outward  appearances  go.  A 
whole  year's  savings  goes,  often  with  an  easy 
abandon,  for  the  best  room  at  a  fashionable 
hotel  by  the  seaside  in  order  that  the  clerk  may 
be  able  to  say,  "I  stopped  at  the  Marlborough- 
Blenheim,"  or  "I  spent  my  holiday  at  Palm 
Beach." 

A  man  and  his  wife  came  from  London  re 
cently  to  reside  in  New  York  for  business  pur 
poses.  I  asked  them  concerning  the  things 


278  American  Ideals 

that  first  and  most  deeply  impressed  them. 
They  answered,  "the  lack  of  class  distinction/' 
When  I  pressed  for  an  answer  as  to  how  this 
lack  of  class  distinction  revealed  itself  they  said, 
"For  example,  we  go  back  and  forth  every  day 
in  the  Broadway  subway.  We  cannot  tell  the 
class  of  the  people  travelling  in  the  subway  with 
us  each  day  by  their  dress  or  bearing,  with  the 
exception  of  the  laborer.  One  of  the  first  things 
that  we  noted  was  that  every  one  wore  silk 
stockings,  which  would  be  an  unheard-of  ex 
travagance  for  the  same  class  of  people  in 
England." 

This  inability  of  the  Englishman  to  discern 
differences  in  the  strata  of  our  society  from  out 
ward  appearances  is  shared  by  Americans  them 
selves.  Recently  I  was  introduced  to  a  woman 
who,  by  her  charming  appearance  and  gracious 
manners  and  faultless  dress,  gave  all  the  ap 
pearance  of  descent  from  generations  of  breeding 
and  culture.  I  was  astonished  when  told  that 
she  was  the  daughter  of  a  railroad  engineer, 
her  brothers  were  brakemen  on  the  railroad,  and 
her  mother  was  a  simple  ordinary  working- 
man's  wife.  It  was  also  found  that  the  whole 
family  had  sacrificed  themselves  far  beyond 
their  means  in  order  that  their  pretty  daughter 


The  Shadow  of  Success  279 

might  have  a  chance  of  a  marriage  in  a  grade 
above  that  of  her  class  (not  unlike  the  Chinese 
who  bind  one  daughter's  feet  in  order  that  she 
may  become  a  "lady"  and  have  the  chance  of  an 
advantageous  marriage,  even  though  the  family 
wait  upon  her  and  sacrifice  many  of  the  actual 
necessities  of  life). 

The  result  of  this  attempt  at  display,  in  order 
to  achieve  a  stratum  of  society  above  them  can 
not  be  otherwise  than  detrimental  as  a  rule  to 
people's  ideals  of  lasting  value  and  the  aims  of 
doing  good  work.  Extravagance  and  ineffi 
ciency  always  go  hand  in  hand.  Living  for 
appearance,  whatever  the  motive,  soon  breeds 
working  for  appearance.  Where  a  man's  heart 
is,  thither  his  thought  and  the  cunning  of  his 
hand  are  inevitably  directed.  Upon  such  aspir 
ants  for  showy  elevation,  debts  are  inclined  to 
sit  more  lightly  with  every  passing  year.  As 
one  young  man  said,  "Why,  you  know  I  should 
never  have  any  money  if  I  paid  my  debts";  or  as 
another  frequenter  of  the  races  said  to  his  friend: 
"Stop  at  the  best  hotel  always;  if  you  win  a  lot 
of  money,  you  don't  care;  if  you  lose,  a  little 
more  don't  count."  The  man  on  a  comfortable 
salary  gets  the  fever  of  spending,  or  his  wife 
gets  the  fever  for  him,  the  gregarious  influences 


280  American  Ideals 

of  his  set  of  acquaintances  get  too  strong  for  his 
power  of  resistance,  and  the  story  is  the  same 
the  world  over — mortgages,  "  business  troubles," 
and  overdrafts  on  bank  and  on  friends.  If  the 
crash  does  not  come  publicly  it  is  sure  to  come 
privately  in  the  shape  of  habits  of  borrowing 
from  one  to  pay  another,  and  the  arrival,  sooner 
or  later,  at  the  "What's-the-use"  stage  of  exist 
ence,  where  the  "deceitfulness  of  riches"  gets  its 
toll  in  the  coin  of  a  man's  loss  of  the  sovereign 
possession — self-respect. 

In  the  words  of  one  of  Dickens'  characters, 
"Income,  one  pound;  expenditure,  one  pound, 
no  shillings,  ha'  penny:  result  misery.  Income, 
one  pound:  expenditure,  nineteen  shillings, 
eleven  pence  ha'  penny:  result  happiness." 

The  display  germ  that  is  to-day  a  simple  toy, 
a  harmless  bit  of  spending  because  a  man  "owes 
it  to  himself  and  family,"  to-morrow  is  the  soul- 
crushing  experience  of  debt  that  soon  grows  into 
that  monster  of  irresponsibility  and  despair,  the 
"world-owes-me-a-living"  feeling,  and  this  is 
personal  suicide. 

It  is  to  the  country  where  still  the  great  ma 
jority  of  the  people  live  that  we  must  look  for 
the  redeeming  and  steadying  factors  in  this  rage 
of  spending.  It  is  to  the  rural  districts  that  we 


The  Shadow  of  Success  281 

must  go  to  find  the  permanent  ideals  of  the  sim 
ple  life  still  regnant.  If  it  is  true  that  the  soul 
of  a  people  lives  at  home  in  the  country  dis 
tricts,  we  may  not  be  discouraged  for  urban 
America.  To  be  in  debt  in  the  country  in  the 
United  States  is  still  a  disgrace,  and  the  farm 
mortgage  is  still  the  thing  that  is  not  talked 
about  as  a  meritorious  incumbrance.  It  is  in 
the  smaller  cities,  in  the  little  towns,  and  in  the 
agricultural  caste  of  America  that  one  finds 
many  of  the  above  conditions  absolutely  re 
versed,  and  the  pride  of  not  buying  unless  you 
can  "pay  down"  is  one  of  the  commonest  char 
acteristics. 

There  is  certain  to  be  a  reaction  from  this  lust 
of  the  eyes  and  the  pride  of  that  life  that  money 
can  buy.  The  metropolis  will  never  rule  the 
country  in  this  respect  of  money  recklessness  and 
money  extravagance.  The  laws  of  happiness, 
of  experience,  and  of  good  sense  are  all  against  it. 
The  American,  even  in  the  cities,  is  showing  signs 

dp  disgust  and  boredom  over  this  frenzied  use  of 
ealth.  He  is  getting  out  of  the  city  to  the 
country  home  and  a  little  patch  of  land  with 
flowers  and  vegetables  to  "Love's  contentment 
more  than  wealth,"  and  even  though  the  place 
be  humble  and  the  sacrifice  of  commuting  is 


282  American  Ideals 

heavy,  it  is  one  of  the  sure  signs  of  better  times 
in  this  money  delusion.  People  are  learning 
that  the  lure  of  Broadway  becomes  less  vivid  in 
relation  to  the  distance  we  place  between  it  and 
our  calmer,  simpler  satisfactions.  Slowly  but  cer 
tainly  we  are  learning  that,  as  Browning  would 
say,  there  is  a  star  that  is  below  Saturn,  there  are 
some  things  that  are  not  worth  the  candle,  even 
though  they  are  attractive  and  bear  the  dollar 
mark,  things  that  never  can  compare  with 

A  simple,  guileless,  childlike  man, 
Content  to  live  where  life  began. 

The  people  of  America  are  too  great  a  folk  to 
be  permanently  captured  by  the  thing,  however 
splendid,  that  is  second  best.  The  mere  empty 
display  of  wealth  is  too  insignificant  as  an  ideal 
to  hold  for  long  the  imagination  of  a  people  of 
great  capacity  for  the  values  of  more  durable 
and  dignified  satisfaction.  America  can  never 
be  a  "peacock  alley"  through  and  through. 
There  are  reasons  both  traditional  and  inherent 
that  prevent.  The  citizens  of  the  United  States 
may  be  deluded  in  their  transitional  evolution 
by  the  domination  of  the  obvious  and  by  the 
glitter  of  the  jewels  in  the  flashing  material 


The  Shadow  of  Success  283 

crown.  But  they  will  never  be  satisfied  with  a 
part  of  life,  or  with  an  imitation  that  crumples 
in  the  hand  that  grasps  it. 

Wu  Ting-fang  once  said  to  me,  speaking  of  the 
Chinese  race,  "We  are  a  commonsense  people. 
We  love  peace."  He  drew  a  pen  picture  then  of 
the  dweller  in  the  United  States  as  well  as  the 
inhabitant  of  the  Middle  Kingdom.  The  vulgar 
display  of  money  is  not  sensible,  and  in  the  end 
it  is  the  enemy  to  peace,  individual  as  well  as 
national.  Its  results  enslave  and  hamper  the 
national  spirit  which,  in  Lincoln's  phrase,  is 
"conceived  in  liberty."  It  is  second-rate;  it  is 
partial;  it  is  un-American.  Therefore,  for  the 
vast  majority,  extravagance  and  waste  cannot 
cast  their  shadows  permanently  on  the  ideals  of 
the  country. 


CHAPTER  X 
AN  AMERICAN  SYMPOSIUM 

But  money  is  only  a  means;  it  presupposes  a  man  to 
use  it.  *  *  *  It  is  always  better  policy  to  learn  an 
interest  than  to  make  a  thousand  pounds;  for  the 
money  will  soon  be  spent,  or  perhaps  you  may  feel  no 
joy  in  spending  it;  but  the  interest  remains  imperish 
able  and  ever  new — you  have  thrown  down  a  barrier 
which  concealed  significance  and  beauty.  The  blind 
man  has  learned  to  see.  The  prisoner  has  opened  a 
window  in  his  cell  and  beholds  enchanting  prospects, 
he  will  never  again  be  a  prisoner  as  he  was;  he  can 
watch  clouds  and  changing  seasons,  ships  on  the 
river,  travellers  on  the  road,  and  the  stars  at  night; 
happy  prisoner!  his  eyes  have  broken  jail! 

ROBERT  Louis  STEVENSON. 


CHAPTER  X 
AN  AMERICAN  SYMPOSIUM 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD  in  one  of  his  essays  in  criti 
cism  referred  to  the  difficulty  inherent  in  the 
task  one  undertakes  when  he  tries  "to  pull  out 
a  few  more  stops"  in  that  powerful  but  at  pres 
ent  somewhat  narrow-toned  organ,  the  modern 
Englishman.  "I  have  always  sought,"  he  con 
tinued,  "to  stand  by  myself  and  to  compromise 
others  as  little  as  possible." 

Likewise  in  a  book  in  which  the  author  at 
tempts  to  set  forth  opinions  relative  to  such 
illusive  matters  as  a  people's  ideals,  one  would 
hesitate  to  take  upon  himself  the  responsibility 
of  standing  for  any  one's  opinion  other  than  his 
own.  Since,  however,  my  convictions  concern 
ing  certain  American  ideals  have  been  greatly 
strengthened  by  the  witness  of  a  wide  circle  of 
Americans  from  various  walks  of  life  and  from 
diverse  sections  of  the  country,  I  have  planned  in 
this  chapter  to  present  a  brief  symposium  upon 
Americanideals  as  seenbyAmericans  themselves. 

287 


288  American  Ideals 

One  hundred  men  were  asked  the  following 
question:  "What  in  your  opinion  are  the  lead 
ing  ideals  of  the  men  with  whom  you  most  fre 
quently  associate?" 

The  following  are  among  the  replies  received. 
A  governor  of  a  large  Eastern  state  said: 

1.  Personal  code  in  public  service. 

2.  A  higher  education  for  the  masses — to  save 
our  Democracy. 

3.  A  rumless  nation. 

4.  The  application  of  business  efficiency  to  public 
service. 

5.  It  never  pays  to  be  smart — i.  e.  "to  put  one 
over"  on  the  other  fellow. 

6.  Revival  of  religious  belief  in  men  of  affairs. 

A  mayor  in  a  Middle  West  city  replied: 

1 .  An  institutional  expression  of  the  humanitarian 
philosophy  which  is  distinctive  of  American  thought 
within  the  last  ten  years. 

2.  Some  solution  of  the  problem  presented  by  the 
larger    leisure    which    industrial    development    has 
brought,  with  the  feeling  that  upon  the  use  which 
we  learn  to  make  of  this  leisure  will  depend  the 
soundness  and  sweetness  of  the  development  of  our 
national  life. 

3.  The  creation  of  a  national  philosophy  which 
will  have  the  will  to  justice  as  a  substitute  for  the 


An  American  Symposium  289 

will  power  which  has  been  tried  and  led  us  apparently 
to  disaster. 

From  a  college  president  on  the  Pacific  Coast: 

To  leave  things  better  than  one  found  them. 
To  alleviate  human  distress. 
To  protect  the  weak. 
To  give  each  his  chance. 

The  president  of  a  New  York  bank  answered 
as  follows: 

The  ideals  of  the  men  of  whom  I  see  most  are 
generally  to  live  helpful  lives  and  to  build  for  pos 
terity  on  foundations  in  which  as  much  of  the  good 
in  past  experience  is  included  and  as  much  as  possible 
of  the  bad  eliminated.  Furthermore,  most  of  the 
men  I  know  are  conducting  themselves  in  their 
business  life  as  though  they  were  bearing  a  great 
measure  of  public  responsibility  and  had  a  great 
duty  devolving  upon  them  in  the  way  of  public  serv 
ice.  This,  I  know,  sounds  idealistic  and  Utopian,  but 
it  is  not.  It  is  the  truth,  as  I  see  it  from  day  to  day. 

From  the  president  of  the  graduating  class 
(1915)  at  the  University  of  California: 

The  men  of  California  are  dominated  by  the  great 
Western  spirit  of  freedom.  Ours  is  a  land  of  promise 
and  of  opportunity.  This  may  sound  like  real-estate 


290  American  Ideals 

advertising,  but  I  assure  you  it  is  sincere.  Contrary 
to  the  belief  of  most  of  our  Eastern  brothers,  the  men 
of  California  have  not  set  up  the  dollar  as  their  God 
and  standard.  It  is  true  our  boys  are  inspired  by 
the  successes  of  their  parents,  and  each  one  longs  to 
be  independent,  and  to  secure  enough  means  to  take 
the  grind  out  of  work.  I  think  I  am  right  when  I 
say  that  the  majority  of  the  seniors  who  are  graduat 
ing  from  the  eight  colleges  of  our  University  this 
spring  have  in  mind, 

(1)  Achievement  in  the  line  in  which  they  have 
specialized. 

(2)  Financial  success  which  will  make  them  socially 
and  economically  independent. 

(3)  By  no  means  least  because  last,  I  believe  that 
we   look   toward   the  establishment  of  true,  loyal, 
American  homes. 

An  American  playwright  says: 

My  intimate  acquaintanceship  is  made  up  largely 
of  one  class,  ideally  speaking.  Most  of  the  men  I 
know  are  either  doing,  or  trying  to  do,  something 
that  will  add  to  the  sum  total  of  the  world's  beauty. 
In  other  words  they  are  artists  of  some  sort,  potential 
or  actual. 

A  travelling  secretary  of  the  College  Young 
Men's  Christian  Associations  in  the  South: 

Certainly  one  of  the  Heals  of  Americans  is  effi 
ciency  which  is  rather  a  broad  term,  but  it  means  real 


An  American  Symposium  291 

capacity  to  do  the  thing  which  one  has  in  hand.  I 
question  very  much  whether  cultural  ideals  have  a 
very  large  sway  in  the  minds  of  the  great  majority 
of  the  people.  I  am  not  a  pessimist  in  any  sense, 
yet  I  do  feel  keenly  that  we  have  elevated  the  dollar 
into  an  entirely  undeserved  place  and  the  man  who  is 
able  to  get  money  has  much  larger  position  thrust 
upon  him  than  his  capacity  really  warrants.  How 
ever,  I  do  believe  that  there  is  growing  in  the  hearts 
of  a  great  many  people  in  America  the  belief  in  what 
might  be  called  a  democratic  culture;  that  is,  a 
larger  cultural  life  for  the  whole  people.  .  .  . 

One's  heart  bleeds  when  he  thinks  how  little  we 
really  appreciate  the  sacredness  and  value  of  the  in 
dividual  person  which  is  a  sign  of  all  real  Democracy. 
This  reveals  a  weak  place  in  our  national  life  which  is 
not  peculiar  to  us — our  false  valuation  of  humanity. 
We  value  men  because  of  position,  money,  etc., 
whereas  we  ought  to  value  them  for  their  character 
and  for  the  essence  of  personality  that  lies  within 
them. 

I  am  not  at  all  sure  but  that  straightforwardness 
and  the  square  deal  is  one  of  the  real  ideals  of 
America  .  .  .  this  is  about  as  fine  an  ideal  as 
we  could  possibly  have. 

A  prominent  magazine  editor: 

Our  ideals  are 

Honesty  and  integrity. 
Intellectual  achievement. 


292  American  Ideals 

Beauty  in  art  and  music  as  a  solace  in  life. 
Domestic  happiness. 
Service  to  one's  fellows. 

Confidence  in  the  great  mission  of  our  Democ 
racy. 

From  a  real-estate  man: 

It  is  difficult  to  define  precisely  what  an  ideal  is. 
If  it  mean  a  standard  of  taste  which  one  has  toward 
masterpieces  in  every  department  of  human  en 
deavor,  then  I  should  reply  that  tastes  differ  so  widely 
that  it  will  be  impossible  to  answer  the  question. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  by  ideal  is  meant  the  thought 
of  personal  achievement  which  each  man  has  for 
himself,  I  should  say  that  the  chief  aspiration  of 
most  of  the  men  I  know  is  to  produce  by  their  life's 
work  something  of  permanent  value  to  the  world, 
and  to  have  their  names  associated  or  identified  with 
that  achievement.  In  other  words,  to  do  something 
worth  while  and  to  be  known  by  others  as  doing  it. 
What  particular  things  men  desire  to  do  are  governed 
by  their  capabilities  and  temperament. 

If  by  ideal  is  meant  the  kind  of  personal  conduct  a 
man  would  choose  for  himself,  most  of  the  men  I 
know  desire  to  so  live  that  they  will  both  satisfy 
their  own  consciences,  and  meet  all  reasonable  criti 
cism  of  their  fellowmen.  Most  men  desire  to  so  live 
that  other  men  will  say:  "His  word  is  as  good  as  his 
bond."  It  seems  to  me  that  most  of  the  men  I  know 
prefer  to  have  other  mei*  think  of  them  as  good 
rather  than  clever.  They  may  desire  to  have  both 


An  American  Symposium  293 

of  these  qualifications  attributed  to  them,  but  would 
prefer  the  former. 

A  New  York  clergyman  says: 

The  men  with  whom  I  most  frequently  associate, 
although  not  constituting  a  very  large  number,  are 
fairly  representive  of  the  rank  and  conditions  of 
American  society.  In  trying  to  imagine  what  a 
composite  photograph  of  my  circle  would  reveal,  I 
believe  that  the  prevailing  ideals  would  be  self- 
reliance — quick  action — big  results.  Education  must 
be  directed  to  "practical  ends" — how  to  build  a  fifty- 
story  skyscraper  in  a  year.  Along  with  this  a  feeling 
of  unrest;  that  "bigness"  is  not  greatness,  and  that 
life  is  not  expressed  entirely  in  terms  of  the  five 
senses.  Witness  Booth  Tarkington's  "The  Turmoil"; 
a  groping,  therefore,  toward  the  spiritual — not  to 
say  the  religious.  Social  service,  literary  clubs, 
musical  societies,  art  classes,  and  free  libraries,  in 
dicate  a  strong  tendency  even  where  they  are  merely 
affectation. 

A  physician  writes: 

During  the  past  ten  years  I  have  observed  a  de 
cided  rise  in  the  tide  of  professional  self-respect.  At 
various  physicians'  associations  and  conventions 
there  is  purposefulness  and  conviction  for  greater 
things.  The  possession  of  basic  principles  proved 
by  modern  research  and  clinical  experience  has  so 
clarified  the  minds  of  the  professional  leaders  that  the 


294  American  Ideals 

true  spirit  of  the  reformer  is  evident.  The  ideal 
seems  little  short  of  absolute  perfection.  Fifteen 
years  ago  it  was  publicly  averred  that  the  mercenary 
spirit  dominated  the  profession.  It  is  my  observa 
tion  that  this  spirit  is  on  the  wane. 

A  librarian  of  a  New  England  university: 

The  men  with  whom  I  associate  most  are  college 
professors.  They  very  seldom  talk  about  their 
ideals.  The  inner  life  of  men  in  our  generation  is 
very  much  less  self-conscious  than  that  of  their 
fathers  even.  I  wonder  if  I  can  say  more  of  them  as  a 
whole  than  that  they  are  chiefly  occupied  with  their 
daily  work,  with  providing  for  their  families,  and  with 
living  up  to  the  standards  of  their  social  and  profes 
sional  class.  In  external  matters  do  we  not  now  say 
''Social  standards"  or  "standards  of  living,"  where  a 
few  years  ago  men  said  "ideals?"  Aren't  ideals  what 
we  give  the  right  of  way  in  our  daily  lives,  regardless 
of  what  we  profess? 

A  consulting  engineer  writes: 

The  American  ideal  is  activity  and  energy,  readi 
ness  to  change,  demanding  improvements  of  living 
^conditions,  freedom  of  rule,  independence  of  action, 
y  and  willingness  to  correct  wrong  and  to  see  future 
possibilities. 

Development  of  women  is  an  American  ideal. 
This  means  more  than  suffrage. 

Recognition  of  laborers'   rights  to  participate  in 


An  American  Symposium  295 

profits  is  an  ideal  that  is  coming  fast  into  large  rec 
ognition.  Its  proper  and  wide  adoption  and  opera 
tion  would  solve  the  so-called  problem  of  capital  vs. 
labor  and  would  probably  replace  socialism  in  this 
country. 

Making  money  is  the  ideal  that  is  attached  to  us 
by  many  foreigners  who  do  not  distinguish  nor  under 
stand  the  underlying  motives.  The  fact  that  an 
American  takes  the  greatest  interest  and  pleasure 
in  conducting  his  business  and  working  out  new 
problems  makes  his  progress  in  inventions,  discov 
eries,  new  appliances,  free  from  the  thought  of 
plodding  or  the  sordid  making  of  money;  therefore,  if 
the  American  does  not  get  pleasure  out  of  his  business, 
he  is  quite  sure  to  neglect  it,  and  reveals  thereby  that 
money-making  is  not  his  ideal. 

Travel,  comprising  the  desire  for  knowledge  and 
understanding  of  all  other  peoples  of  the  world,  is 
undoubtedly  an  American  ideal.  It  has  been  incul 
cated  possibly  by  a  desire  for  change  of  scene.  It  is 
an  expression  of  the  underlying  spirit  that  has  formed 
and  made  the  United  States  of  America,  and  when 
intelligently  indulged,  it  results  in  the  broadening 
of  thought  and  a  development  of  ideals  that  cannot 
come  so  easily  and  readily  in  any  other  way. 

Head  master  of  a  large  school  for  boys: 

As  I  meet  men  to-day,  not  only  those  in  my  own 
profession,  but  business  men — men  who  are  in  the 
stress  and  strain  of  active  business  life  in  our  cities — 
I  am  impressed  with  the  change  in  ideals  as  compared 


296  American  Ideals 

with  those  of  twenty  years  ago.  It  seems  to  me  that 
underneath  all  the  desire  to  accumulate  wealth, 
which  is  common  enough  to-day,  is  a  very  deep- 
seated  desire  to  be  of  real  service  in  the  world.  Only 
a  month  ago  I  heard  one  of  the  leading  business  men 
of  America  tell  how  he  took  over  a  large  publishing 
enterprise  chiefly  because  it  seemed  to  him  to  afford 
an  opportunity  to  accomplish  some  good,  as  well  as 
to  make  some  money.  That  seems  to  me  typical 
of  the  ideals  of  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  better 
and  more  successful  business  men  of  to-day.  I  am 
quite  sure  that  it  is  the  ideal  of  men  in  my  own 
profession. 

The  editor  of  a  Socialist  paper  sent  to  me  what 
he  considered  to  be  the  chief  ideals  of  a  dozen 
people  with  whom  he  was  closely  associated: 

Adventure,  a  free  personal  life,  revolutionary  ad 
justment  of  social  conditions. 

Destruction  of  established  forms  of  coercion. 

Personal  artistic  achievement;  the  achievement  of 
a  more  sane  and  liberal  social  life. 

Spread  of  knowledge  concerning  economic  evolu 
tion,  and  increase  of  effort  in  line  with  that  knowl 
edge. 

More  personal  freedom,  more  self-expression,  less 
responsibility. 

Personal  artistic  achievement,  self-knowledge,  hap 
piness  in  personal  relationships. 

Furthering  of  social  revolution. 


An  American  Symposium  297 

Personal  artistic  achievements;  personal  happiness 
in  human  relations. 

Social  fair  play;  self-expression. 

Discovery  in  the  field  of  art. 

Personal  artistic  achievement. 

Service  in  behalf  of  artistic  freedom  and  social 
revolution. 

Self-expression;  artistic  achievement;  freedom 
from  responsibility. 

Readjustment  of  economic  arrangements. 

The  editor  who  sent  these  characterizations  of 
his  friends  added  this  footnote. : 

Reading  these  over,  I  realize  that  they  seem  very 
much  alike.  But ! 

A  prominent  publisher: 

While  it  is  true  that  wealth  and  success  figure 
conspicuously  among  many  of  the  men  of  America, 
I  am  not  inclined  to  accept  these  as  the  controlling 
ideal.  Big  business,  great  wealth,  and  success  are 
closely  related  to  the  unlimited  resources  and  extent 
of  the  country;  and  the  men  of  our  country,  seeing 
the  door  of  opportunity,  knocked  persistently  until 
it  responded.  But  beneath  the  surface  of  these 
material  things  there  are  to  be  found  finer  concep 
tions  and  ideals,  freedom,  justice,  large-heartedness, 
humor,  optimism,  and  an  abiding  faith  in  the  people. 
Nowhere  has  the  peace  ideal  met  with  a  finer  re- 


298  American  Ideals 

sponse  than  in  America,  and  the  men  with  whom  I 
have  had  the  honor  to  associate  impress  me  as  stand 
ing  more  for  honor  and  justice  than  for  success  and 
wealth.  The  search  for  "the  more  abundant  life"  is 
more  in  evidence  in  America  than  almost  anywhere 
else.  Of  course,  it  is  only  too  true  that  in  that 
search  gross  mistakes  have  been  made,  and  will  be 
made  until  the  end  of  the  chapter.  Yet  it  is  marvel 
lous  how  the  ideal  of  self-government  has  entered 
more  and  more  into  the  life  of  the  American  people, 
taking  on  larger  forms  as  the  needs  of  the  people 
demanded  it. 

The  vice-president  of  a  Boston  savings  bank: 

Imagination,  working  with  and  expressing  itself 
in  material  resources.  Morgan  was  more  of  an 
idealist  and  artist  in  finance  than  in  his  collection  of 
"objects  of  art."  His  satisfaction  was  in  power 
rather  than  in  delight — in  owning  something  that 
others  couldn't  own,  rather  than  in  the  beauty  of  the 
objects  themselves.  Our  captains  of  industry  are 
idealists  up  to  a  certain  point,  for  they  have  vision 
and  they  create.  Who  now  will  rear  the  structure 
on  the  foundations  they  have  so  magnificently  laid? 

Our  poets,  novelists,  painters,  sculptors,  archi 
tects,  are  moved  to  the  expression  of  energy  rather 
than  to  the  creation  of  beauty — something  that 
satisfies  of  itself  by  virtue  of  its  eternal  Tightness  and 
harmony. 

Social  and  political  reform  points  immediately  to 
the  amelioration  of  physical  conditions:  better 


An  American  Symposium  299 

housing,  higher  wages,  more  comforts,  and  increased 
efficiency,  honesty  in  officials,  as  involving  less  waste 
of  the  taxpayer's  money.  Does  reform  look  for 
ward  also  to  the  release  of  the  human  spirit  for  the 
enjoyment  of  the  "things  that  are  more  excellent?" 

We  have  the  materials  and  the  conditions  of  a 
great  civilization,  but  our  civilization  is  not  great. 
What  are  the  ideals,  and  with  whom  are  they  to  be 
found,  which  shall  achieve  a  spiritual  end  at  all  com 
mensurate  with  the  material  means? 

A  well-known  author  and  traveller: 

The  spirit  of  brotherhood  and  a  thoroughly  genuine 
interest  in  fellowmen.  My  experience,  especially 
in  city  clubs  for  men,  leads  me  to  conclude  that  this 
feeling  is  keener  in  America  than  in  the  countries  of 
Europe  where  I  have  lived  and  travelled.  I  think 
the  American  man  is  peculiarly  sensitive  to  the  rights 
and  feelings  of  his  fellows. 

Keen  interest  in  truly  democratic  movements  and 
factors  in  social  adjustment.  I  think  our  men  really 
want  to  be  brought  into  larger  and  more  sympathetic 
participation  in  the  activities  of  our  civilization. 

A  really  knightly  attitude  toward  women. 

A  growing  spirit  of  tolerance  in  matters  of  religion 
and  social  usages  and  personal  habits. 

From  a  professor  in  Columbia  University: 

My  associates  are  mostly  students  and  teachers. 
The  ideal  of  scholarship,  the  enlargement  of  knowl- 


300  American  Ideals 

edge,  is  very  powerful  with  the  University  professors, 
and  perhaps  equally  powerful  is  the  less  definable 
professional  ideal — the  personal  qualities  that  belong 
to  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman.  Students,  too  (mine 
are  all  graduate  students),  share  in  these  ideals  and 
also  in  the  astonishingly  powerful  ideal  of  education. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  faith  in  education  is  really 
connected  with  the  growing  faith  in  our  power  to 
better  things — an  idealism  which  glorifies  human 
energy.  Hence  the  zeal  to  make  money,  to  improve 
one's  social  station,  to  get  an  education,  to  be  of 
service  to  others.  These  all  rest  on  a  profound  faith 
in  the  power  of  human  energy  to  create  a  better 
world. 

With  educated  women,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
ideal  of  a  freer  and  more  variegated  life  for  women 
is  nowadays  very  much  alive.  I  think  it  has  its 
roots  in  that  same  confidence  in  the  ability  of  the 
human  being  to  make  the  world  over. 

A  Wall  Street  financier  and  vice-president  of 
a  large  trust  company: 

I  think  that  the  leading  ideals  of  the  men  with 
whom  I  associate  are  in  general  the  ethics  of  Wall 
Street,  where  a  man's  word  is  of  greater  value  than 
anywhere  else  in  the  country.  I  feel,  too,  that  their 
attitude  has  become  much  less  provincial  than  hereto 
fore,  and  that  often  the  good  of  the  country,  the 
state,  and  business  at  large  is  considered  by  them 
more  than  individual  profit. 


An  American  Symposium  301 

A  well-known  Jewish  scientist: 

This  question  is  difficult  to  answer  as  it  really  refers 
to  the  innermost  thoughts  of  men.  What  appears 
on  the  surface  may  be  an  inclination  toward  world 
peace  and  charity,  refinement  and  culture.  I  am 
afraid  that,  however,  under  the  surface,  the  real  mo 
tives  are  still  selfishness  and  self-gratification,  effi 
ciency  for  the  purpose  of  personal  success,  ease  of 
life,  and  pleasure.  I  do  not  think  that  what  goes  un 
der  the  name  of  charity  is  genuine  in  most  instances. 
I  find,  even  among  my  friends,  that  they  are  more 
ready  to  spend  ten  dollars  on  self-gratification  than 
one  dollar  on  public  welfare  from  truly  altruistic 
motives. 

A  schoolmaster  said: 

Selecting  twelve  close  friends,  representing  teach 
ing,  business,  law,  medicine,  the  ministry,  and  farm 
ing,  I  discover  them  to  be  animated  by  the  following 
ideals: 

Public  service  without  thought  of  personal  gain — 

9 
Thrift— 6 

Personal  advancement,  per  se — 4 

Wealth,  that  is,  the  accumulation  of  money  for 
the  sake  of  family  or  for  self — 5 

Generosity,  of  time  and  interest,  as  well  as  of 
money — 3 

Advancement  of  the  profession  as  a  science — 6 


302  American  Ideals 

A  farmer  in  northern  New  York: 

I  do  not  know  as  I  understand  exactly  what  you 
mean  by  "ideals,"  but  the  things  I  am  trying  to  live 
up  to  are: 

I  want  to  give  my  boy  and  my  girl  as  good  an  edu 
cation  as  they  can  get,  for  I  didn't  have  the  chance 
when  I  was  a  boy  to  study. 

I  want  to  be  looked  up  to  in  my  church  and  my 
community  as  a  man  who  pays  his  debts  and  whose 
word  can  be  trusted. 

I  want  my  work  to  be  well  done.  When  I  shovel  a 
path  in  the  snow  I  try  to  shovel  it  wide  and  clean, 
and  when  I  plow  a  furrow  I  try  to  make  it  straight 
and  deep. 

I  want  a  home  free  from  debt  and  enough  money 
for  myself  and  wife  to  live  on  when  we  can't  work  no 
more. 

The  president  of  one  of  the  largest  life  insur 
ance  companies: 

In  business — 

To  succeed.  Success  means  more  than  mere 
money;  it  means  the  power  to  advance  methods  and 
thereby  benefit  others. 

Socially — 

An  utter  contempt  for  "society"  as  that  word  is 
usually  applied.  No  especial  social  program  that 
does  not  aim  directly  at  intellectual  quickening  and 
social  betterment. 


An  American  Symposium  303 

A  lawyer  in  a  large  city  of  the  Middle  West 
writes : 

I  have  picked  out  fifteen  men  with  whom  I  am  closely 
enough  acquainted  to  feel  that  I  can  interpret  to  some 
extent  the  ideals  which  seem  to  me  to  dominate  them. 

1.  Wealthy  man.     Head  of  large  manufacturing 
business.     Accumulation    of    money.     Position    of 
social  and  financial  power. 

2.  Head  of  large  manufacturing  business,  national 
in  scope.     Accumulation  of  money.     Personal  serv 
ice  to  a  limited  extent. 

3.  Minor  officer  in  large  corporation.     Accumu 
lation  of  money.     Social  position. 

4.  Head  of  moderate-sized  local  business.     Accu 
mulation  of  money.     Social  position. 

5.  Assistant  to  business   man   just   mentioned. 
Accumulation    of   money.     Proper    education    and 
rearing  of  family. 

6.  Agent  working  on  commission.     Accumulation 
of  money  to  spend  on  personal  pleasure.     Married, 
but  does  not  want  family. 

7.  Agent  working  on  commission.    Money  enough 
to  get  married. 

8.  Travelling  man.     Accumulation  of  money  for 
realization  of  high-grade  family  life.     (Wants  to  be 
able  to  stay  at  home.) 

9.  Prominent  lawyer.     Community  service,  na 
tionally  and  locally,  to  the  point  of  self-sacrifice. 

10.  Lawyer.     Accumulation  of  money  for  per 
sonal  pleasure. 


304  American  Ideals 

11.  Physician.     Money  enough  to  retire   from 
practice  and  go  into  farming  and  dairying  on  a  large 
scale. 

1 2.  Chief  executive  of  social-service  organization. 
Community  service,  and  a  happy  family  life. 

13.  Minister.     Service. 

14.  An  old  man  whose  chief  aim  is  to  live,  and  who 
devotes  all  of  his  time  and  money  to  this  one  end. 

15.  A  working  man.     Money  to  properly  bring 
up  and  educate  his  family. 

The  ideals  given  above  are  what  I  would  call 
"  leading."  Of  course,  there  are  less  prominent  ideals 
in  all  these  cases  which  are  more  altruistic. 

The  above  replies  give  a  somewhat  compre 
hensive  idea  of  the  ideals  that  exist  in  the  minds 
of  Americans  of  widely  different  classes.  Space 
would  not  permit  presenting  the  answers  of 
the  entire  one  hundred  witnesses  as  to  the 
character  of  the  ideals  regnant  in  America,  but 
the  following  summary  of  answers  of  the  one 
hundred  men  who  replied  is  significant. 

"What  are  the  leading  ideals  of  the  men  with 
whom  you  most  frequently  associate?" 

The  following  ideals  were  mentioned : 

No.  timei 
mentioned 

To  be  of  service  to  one's  fellows 46 

To  make  money  for  selfish  enjoyment  or  personal 
power 28 


An  American  Symposium  305 

No.   times 
mentioned 

The  search  for  truth  and  justice,  intellectual 
achievement,  to  contribute  to  human  knowl 
edge  24 

To  provide  fora  family,  domestic  happiness,  and 

education  of  children 22 

Efficiency,  self-reliance n 

Honesty,  integrity,  fair  play — the  square  deal     11 
Confidence  in  Democracy  and  its  institutions     .       9 
To  attain  reputation  and  high  professional  stand 
ing — i.  e.,  personal  ambition 8 

Deeper  religious  life 8 

Tolerance  in  religious,  social,  and  personal  mat 
ters;  greater  freedom  of  the  individual      .      .       8 
Love   of  beauty   (art,   music,   literature,   etc.) 

and  the  creation  of  beauty.      .  ...       6 

Chivalry  toward  women  and  protecting  of  the 

weak 3 

Education  of  the  masses 2 

Prohibition 2 

The  answers  summarized  in  the  table  just 
given  represented  the  opinions  of  persons  living 
in  twenty  different  states  of  the  Union.  The  call 
ings  and  positions  represented  by  the  one  hun 
dred  persons  answering  were  as  follows: 

Law,  Engineering,  Medicine,  Business  (in  various 
divisions:  Real  Estate,  Insurance,  Advertising, 
Clerks,  Agents,  Managers,  Manufacturers,  Trades- 


306  American  Ideals 

men),  Artists,  Clergy,  Educators,  Professors,  Col 
lege  Presidents,  State  Governor,  Congressman, 
Librarian,  Actor,  Poet,  City  Officials,  Secretaries  and 
Heads  of  Social  and  Religious  Societies,  Musician, 
Undergraduates,  Playwright,  Authors,  Travellers, 
Scientists,  Publishers,  Missionaries,  Newspapermen 
and  Editors,  Farmers,  Principals  of  Academies  and 
High  Schools,  Bankers,  Miners,  a  Multimillionaire, 
and  a  Travelling  Salesman. 

It  is  possible  that  the  person  reading  and 
studying  the  aims  suggested  by  this  circle  of 
Americans  may  get  the  impression  that  we  are 
inclined  to  be  unduly  optimistic.  In  order  that 
there  might  be  a  balanced  picture  of  the  idealism 
existing  in  the  minds  of  the  average  and  rep 
resentative  American  citizen,  I  added  another 
question  which  was  also  answered  by  the  same 
one  hundred  men.  This  question  read  as  fol 
lows: 

"  "What  do  you  consider  to  be  the  chief  points 
of  weakness  in  our  contemporary  American 
life?" 

I  append  some  of  the  answers  received. 

From  the  president  of  a  large  college  for  girls: 

Laxness  in  honor;  slackness  of  moral  fibre  when  not 
on  parade;  willingness  to  .shirk  the  labor  of  honest 
detail;  in  a  word,  a  willingness  to  dodge  obligation. 


An  American  Symposium  307 

Out  of  this  comes  our  attitude  toward  law,  which  is 
no  further  advanced  than  a  schoolboy's,  who  plays 
hookey  if  he  can. 

From  a  New  England  author: 

Speaking  now  of  my  countrymen  in  general — 
narrowness  of  vision;  self-indulgence;  "cheapness  of 
soul";  deference  to  success  regardless  of  how  it  was 
won;  ease  in  Zion,  or  rather  in  its  hinterland; 
the  Narcissus-like  self-contemplation  of  that  poor 
creature  the  "man  in  the  street";  lack  of  thorough 
ness;  lack  of  respect  for  the  intellect;  just  now  a  sense 
of  world  importance  without  a  corresponding  sense  of 
world  responsibility;  all  this  is  helped  on  by  a  lack 
of  an  acknowledged  moral  aristocracy. 

This  from  a  poet : 

Lack  of  responsibility  in  public  affairs. 

Toleration  of  dishonesty. 

Want  of  thoroughness  and  discipline. 

Complacency  with  cheap  ideals  of  comfort,  luxury, 
and  fashion. 

Failure  to  understand  the  functions  of  intellectual 
influences. 

Need  of  constructive  imagination 

A  bank  examiner  considered  the  following  to 
be  our  chief  points  of  weakness: 

Materialistic  tendencies. 

Striving  for  effect  at  the  expense  of  any  or  all  ideals. 


308  American  Ideals 

Lack  of  simplicity. 

Lack  of  serious  application  to  present  or  future 
problems. 

Loss  of  early  ideals  through  the  breaking  up  of 
what  formerly  constituted  "Home  Life." 

Lack  of  interest  in  religious  thought. 

A  prominent  member  of  an  American  Peace 
Society  said: 

The  tolerance  of  liquor  as  a  factor  in  society. 

The  failure  to  know  and  to  understand  other  na 
tions. 

The  heedless  waste  of  national  resources. 

The  dominance  of  money  and  the  neglect  to  guard 
the  interest  of_the_peoplejfrom_itj 

The  belief  that  the  state  should  help  people  in 
doing  what  they  ought  to  do  for  themselves. 

The  belief  that  the  state  should  go  beyond  its 
cardinal  duties  of  justice,  sanitation,  education,  and 
peace. 

In  all  these  regards  I  believe  that  America  has  a 
better  record  than  any  other  large  nation. 

A  popular  author  said  that  American's  weak 
nesses  consist  of 

Inability  to  properly  use  their  leisure  hours,  due 
to  lack  of  education  in  the  refined  pleasures  of  life — 
music,  literature,  painting,  etc. 

Lack  of  free  outdoor  activity;  failure  to  develop 
basal  fundamental  muscles,  and  the  growing  tend- 


An  American  Symposium  309 

ency  to  participate  passively  rather  than  actively  in 
manual  sports  (they  prefer  to  "see"  athletics  rather 
than  to  participate  in  athletics.  Consequently  the 
danger  of  muscular  degeneration  and  over-stimulus 
of  the  brain). 

Disregard  of  laws  of  personal  hygiene  and  matters 
of  sanitation.  Intemperance  in  the  matter  of  over 
eating,  undersleeping,  and  "bibbing"  alcoholic  bever- 
>ages. 

Perhaps  a  lack  of  independence  in  thought  and 

|  feeling;  undue  desire  to  do  as  the  others  of  their 

,  group  do;  the  "keeping  up  with  Lizzie"  sort  of  living 

/   and  consequent  luxuries  and  their  improper  valua- 

jtion. 

A  shoe  manufacturer  in  Massachusetts  con 
sidered  the  shadows  of  our  ideals  to  be  the  fol 
lowing: 

Unemployment.  It  is  not  creditable  to  our  civil 
ization  that  better  arrangements  have  not  been  made 
for  the  systematic  utilization  of  the  brain — and 
muscle — labor  of  the  race. 

"Theearth  brings  forth  abundantly,"  in  accordance 
with  God's  primeval  ordinance,  but  human  methods 
of  developing  and  distributing  that  product  are 
haphazard,  and  a  part  of  the  population  get  too 
much,  and  a  part  none  at  all. 

A  tendency  to  waste  and  extravagance  both  in 
private  life  and  in  the  government  of  the  city,  the 
state,  and  the  nation.  This  involves  carelessness 


3io  American  Ideals 

about  the  future  and  probable  eventual  embarrass 
ment,  and  it  breeds  radicalism  in  private  and  public 
policy.  If  we  are  thoughtless  about  the  day  after 
to-morrow  and  come  to  grief,  while  our  neighbor  is 
forethoughtful  and  prosperous,  we  are  inclined  to 
resent  his  advantage  and  to  seek  in  some  way  to 
penalize  him.  Note  certain  phases  of  the  otherwise 
laudable  labor  movement,  and  also  the  demoralizing 
tendency  toward  class  legislation. 

A  professor  and  editor  writes: 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  greatest  defect  of  the  body 
politic  in  our  land  is  too  little  devotion  to  civic  duties 
combined  with  the  tendency  to  adhere  too  closely  to 
party  lines  or  to  yield  too  readily  to  the  claim  of  party 
allegiance.  As  I  compare  our  own  civic,  state,  and 
national  politics  and  that  of — say — England,  I 
find  a  great  gap.  The  government  of  Birmingham 
or  Manchester  is  a  century  in  advance  of  that  of 
New  York  or  Philadelphia  so  far  as  an  intelligent 
comprehension  of  the  needs  of  a  great  population 
is  concerned,  or  so  far  as  wise  measures  go  to  meet 
these  needs.  Were  our  own  citizens  fired  with  the 
will  to  do  their  parts  in  understanding  the  funda 
mental  requirements  of  political  administration,  to 
exercise  soberly  the  duty  and  right  of  choosing  those 
administrators,  and  then  of  following  them  up  to  see 
that  they  "  administered"  properly,  our  politics  would 
be  cleaner  and  more  effective.  I  would  like  to  see 
our  leisure  class,  the  so-called  "idle  rich,"  engaged 
more  earnestly  in  the  study  and  pursuit  of  economics 


An  American  Symposium  311 

and  the  higher  politics.  Whatever  may  be  said  of 
the  English  aristocracy,  it  has  furnished  a  line  of  ably 
equipped  men  to  work  in  state  offices,  on  the  bench, 
in  diplomacy,  and  elsewhere. 

A  radical  change  is  coming  over  the  ideas  of  the 
distribution  of  wealth.  We  shall  surely  learn,  are 
indeed  in  some  small  degree  already  putting  it  into 
practice,  to  distribute  wealth  more  equably.  Capital 
must  have  its  due  return,  so  must  labor.  Profit- 
sharing  has  come  to  stay.  It  must  grow  in  extent 
of  application.  On  the  other  hand,  the  levelling  of 
the  incompetent  and  the  competent  laborers  as  im 
plied  by  some  past  labor  movements  has  not  and 
cannot  justify  itself.  "A  fair  day's  labor  for  a  fair 
day's  wage"  is  as  imperative  in  requirement  as  is 
"A  fair  wage  for  a  fair  day's  labor."  The  maxim  of 
the  old  Chinese  sage  must  govern  in  the  industrial 
world.  He  used  the  single  word,  "reciprocity." 
That  must  be  fired  with  the  Christ  spirit,  realization 
of  a  universal  brotherhood,  a  brotherhood  that  is  not 
enfeebled  by  its  universality,  but  rather  enriched  by 
its  expansiveness;  this  seems  to  me  to  be  the  key  to  the 
world's  betterment. 

A  clergyman  in  St.  Louis: 

The  chief  points  of  weakness  in  our  contemporary 
American  life  are  (a)  in  social  life,  shallowness,  the 
building  of  social  relations  upon  artificial  things  such 
as  ancestry,  money,  etc.  (b)  Intellectually,  the  lack 
of  thoroughness.  People  do  not  think.  They  trust 
newspapers,  often  clothing  them  with  infallibility. 


312  American  Ideals 

In  religion  the  same  is  true.  There  is  a  woful  lack 
of  intelligence  on  religious  matters,  not  only  outside  of 
religious  circles,  but  among  members  of  churches. 
This  downright  ignorance  is  responsible  for  the 
growth  of  all  sorts  of  fads  in  religion,  (c)  Lack  of 
ethical  enthusiasm.  This  is  seen  in  industrial  rela 
tions,  business  transactions,  social  ideals,  religious 
life,  and  everywhere  else. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  United  States  is  any  worse 
off  than  any  other  country.  Indeed,  I  believe  the 
contrary. 

From  a  college  president  in  Ohio: 

1.  Lack  of  forethought. 

2.  Too  great  fondness  for  physical  comfort  and 
physical  splendor. 

3.  Indisposition  to  think  hard  and  to  read  good 


Lack  of  individuality  or  the  presence  of  the 
to  follow  the  fashion. 

5.  Too  great  fondness  for  the  picturesque. 

6.  A  newspaper  press  without  proper  sense  of 
responsibility. 

7.  Disregard  of  properly  constituted  authority. 

The  secretary  of  a  national  missionary  society 
of  one  of  the  larger  denominations  has  this  to 
say: 

Failure  to  read  strong,  vigorous,  wholesome  books, 
especially  the  Bible. 


An  American  Symposium  313 

Tendency  to  look  upon  the  college  course  more  as 
a  pleasure  than  as  a  source  of  intellectual  profit. 

Living  beyond  one's  means  and  trying  to  keep  up 
two  or  more  establishments  when  one  is  sufficient. 

Tendency  to  untruthfulness  and  to  lower  grad 
ually  the  standards  of  daily  conduct. 

A  pride  in  past  achievements,  and  mistaking  move 
ment  for  progress,  while  gradually  the  whole  life  is 
running  on  the  down  grade. 

A  teacher  in  the  University  of  Michigan: 

To  me,  as  a  foreigner,  the  weakness  (no  less  than 
the  strength)  of  contemporary  American  life  asserts 
itself  very  distinctly,  the  more  that  the  process  is 
unconscious.  Folk  live  far  too  much  in  the  moment: 
they  stop  to  reflect  too  seldom.  Above  all,  they 
tend  to  postpone  the  really  serious  things  of  life 
under  the  supposition  that,  till  a  certain  material  or 
economic  plane  has  been  reached,  this  postponement 
is  safe.  I  take  it  that  this  is  due  in  a  large  measure 
to  the  one  main  characteristic  in  which  the  residents 
of  the  United  States  agree — a  political  outlook. 

This  makes  for  compromise;  but  it  hides  the  fact 
that  compromise,  even  if  thoroughly  viable,  leaves  the 
fundamental  questions  of  principle  untouched.  And 
principle  cannot  be  determined  except  by  close 
attention  to  thinking,  and  by  serious  study  of  the 
permanent  things.  The  result  is  that,  as  concerns 
these  most  serious  affairs,  we  rush  blindly  at  a  con 
clusion  when  stress  arises,  and  pay  ourselves  with 
makeshifts. 


314  American  Ideals 

A  secretary  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association  in  the  West: 

To  be  more  afraid  of  being  caught  than  we  are 
afraid  of  wrongdoing. 

To  mistake  an  outward  veneer  of  pretence  for  a 
deep-rooted  inner  life. 

Too  much  time  is  given  to  the  hurry  and  bustle 
of  life  and  not  enough  to  its  best  values. 

The  home  and  home  life  as  such  receives  too  little 
attention  for  our  own  best  good. 

Mistaking  acquaintances  for  friends — underesti 
mating  the  value  of  true  friendship. 

Depending  too  much  upon  outside  entertainment 
rather  than  trying  to  develop  such  a  life  as  will 
make  one's  self  good  company  for  others  as  well  as  for 
one's  self. 

A  university  president  in  California  states  his 
opinion: 

Our  chief  national  failing  is  made  up  of  a  union  of 
fussiness,  nervousness,  hurry;  "keeping  up  with  the 
times";  reading  the  latest  novel;  seeing  a  little  of 
everything,  just  enough  to  talk  about  it;  general  thin 
ness  due  to  admiration  of  versatility;  "government" 
by  bluff,  a  natural  result  of  shallow  equipment. 

A  multimillionaire  mine  owner  thinks  that 
our  weaknesses  consist  of 

Extravagance  and  inefficiency.  The  Americans  of 
formergenerations  have  been  the  most  efficient  people 


An  American  Symposium  315 

in  the  world  and  in  many  respects  they  are  so  yet, 
but  I  think  there  has  been  a  great  decrease  in  this 
respect  in  the  American  people  during  the  past  two 
generations.  This  is  probably  mainly  due  to  educa 
tion  and  association  with  other  inefficient  people. 

Aside  from  our  technological  and  so-called  voca 
tional  educational  institutions,  the  education  fur 
nished  seems  to  be  much  like  giving  a  young  man  or  a 
young  woman  a  box  of  tools,  and  without  instruc 
tions  how  to  use  them,  expect  them  to  build  wagons, 
furniture,  houses,  etc.  I  think  there  has  been  some 
change  for  the  better  in  this  respect  during  recent 
years,  but  the  ordinary  education  seems  to  be  con 
fined  to  furnishing  the  tools  and  allowing  the  student 
to  find  out  how  to  use  them  as  he  may. 

In  former  generations  so  much  was  done  at  home 
that  young  people  growing  up  unconsciously  became 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  all  practical  matters 
relating  to  life  and  the  human  effort  required  in 
carrying  on  the  affairs  of  life;  but  during  the  past 
two  generations  the  factory  system  has  developed  so 
rapidly  that  now  nearly  everything  is  made  in  fac 
tories,  and  young  people  get  little  or  no  practical  in 
struction  at  home. 

I  have  had  many  college  men  apply  to  me  for  posi 
tions  who  did  not  know  how  to  get  in  and  out  of  the 
office  decently,  and  who  did  not  know  how  to  do  a 
single  thing  that  was  of  any  practical  benefit  to  any 
one.  Such  education  as  they  had  received  seemed  to 
be  actually  a  detriment,  and  I  am  glad  to  see  a  tend 
ency  toward  a  more  practical  effort  in  this  direction. 


316  American  Ideals 

A  clergyman  in  a  large  Eastern  city,  believes 
that: 

The  chief  points  of  weakness  in  our  contemporary 
life  are: 

First,  shallow  spiritual  experience  without  ideas 
and  with  poverty-stricken  ideals. 

Second,  a_gregariousness.  which  seems  to  render  the 
individual  incapable  of  thinking,  doing,  or  being  for 
himself  as  an  individual. 

Third,  an  absurd  reverence  for  external  signs  of 
prosperity. 

""Fourth,  the  absence  of  a  sense  of  moral  obligation 
in  relation  to  the  ordinary  affairs  of  everyday  people. 

Fifth,  a  growing  attempt  to  make  social  and  exter 
nal  conditions  a  substitute  for  internal  Christianity. 

Sixth,  a  pernicious  activity  which  has  made  repose, 
serenity,  inwardness  of  life,  practically  impossible. 

Seventh,  a  puerile  lowering  of  the  standards  of 
virility  to  the  level  of  little  children. 

The  editor  of  one  of  the  most  widely  circu 
lated  American  weeklies  considers  our  chief 
points  of  failure: 

The  supreme  worship  of  wealth  and  the  struggle 
to  attain  it,  the  principal  flaw  in  our  character  as  a 
people.  In  this  struggle  there  is  almost  always  too 
great  a  sacrifice.  .  Were  wealth  sought  in  reasonable 
measure,  it  would  bring  comfort  and  enjoyment;  but 
the  common  tendency  is  to  seek  it,  not  for  rational 


An  American  Symposium  317 

uses,  but  as  a  means  for  acquiring  still  more.  There 
is  no  country  in  the  world  where  we  find  so  many  men 
of  middle  age  still  engrossed  in  making  money. 
Other  lands  have  their  leisure  class,  who  have  with 
drawn,  to  some  extent  at  least,  from  the  active 
struggle  in  order  that  they  may  study  those  graces 
that  give  refinement  and  nobility  to  age,  and  which 
furnish  opportunities  for  helping  those  who  are  be 
ginning  the  battle  in  stress  and  difficulties.  Wealth, 
rightly  considered,  is  a  stewardship  which  should 
carry  with  it  a  wide  recognition  of  our  responsibility. 
Fortunately,  this  recognition  is  steadily  growing. 
I  think  Andrew  Carnegie  was  right  when  he  said 
that  the  time  was  coming  when  it  would  be  considered 
a  disgrace  for  an  American  to  die  rich.  The  really 
wise  and  good  man  should  be  his  own  executor. 

Another  outstanding  element  of  weakness  in  our 
social  and  business  life  is  the  widely  prevalent  lack  of 
appreciation  of  the  Golden  Rule.  Selfishness  and 
indifference  lead  to  many  hard  and  cruel  situations. 
If  the  Christ  spirit  were  within  us,  even  in  small 
measure,  we  would  give  greater  attention  to  our  busi 
ness  methods.  There  would  be  less  misrepresenta 
tion,  less  driving  of  close  bargains,  less  exploiting  of 
employees,  less  of  the  evils  of  drudgery  and  child 
labor — in  a  word,  less  selfishness.  The  application  of 
the  simple  rule  of  Christ's  teaching  would  help  us  to 
think  more  of  our  neighbor  than  we  do,  and  to  give 
more  consideration  to  the  rights  of  others.  We  are 
intent  in  everything  we  undertake,  so  full  of  the  sheer 
love  of  the  battle  that  we  show  little  or  no  mercy. 


318  American  Ideals 

The  president  of  the  graduating  (1915)  class 
at  the  University  of  Wisconsin  writes: 

The  chief  weakness  in  our  public  life  at  present,  as 
it  appears  to  me,  is  the  feeling  that  if  I  don't  do  a 
thing  some  one  else  will.  Few  men  in  public  life 
are  taking  a  share  in  doing  a  thing  for  which  they 
are  not  directly  responsible,  and  too  many  are  not 
doing  the  things  for  which  they  are  directly  respon 
sible.  The  unpleasant  thing  about  our  private  life 
in  America  is  that  it  is  difficult  to  have  a  private  life 
under  present  conditions.  The  citizen  as  a  private 
individual  is  a  slave  to  public  opinion,  and  conse- 
[uently  does  not  dare  to  do  what  he  thinks  best  or 
wisest  if  that  thing  excites  comment. 

A  New  York  banker: 

I  feel  that  present  political  consideration  makes  it 
difficult  for  individuals  confidently  to  go  into  new 
ventures  or  to  look  forward  to  future  prosperity,  and 
that  this  unrest  and  tendency  toward  socialism  is  at 
the  bottom  of  the  present  depression  and  lack  of 
employment. 

A  Boston  banker: 

The  passion  for  "getting  on,"  with  accompanying 
failure  to  see  what  one  is  getting  on  toward. 

Pride  in  power  and  in  the  ownership  of  things. 
Too  great  reliance  on  the  finality  of  material. 

The  lust  for  spending  ami  having  others  know  that 
one  spends. 


An  American  Symposium  319 

Too  much  confidence  in  the  necessary  and  fore 
ordained  greatness  of  the  United  States. 

Failure  to  relate  ideals  to  practical  conduct,  to 
realize  the  one  and  to  transfigure  the  other. 

A  congressman: 

Extravagance  in  living.  Most  Americans  prefer 
to  spend  money  rather  than  not  to  spend  it,  and 
therefore  very  many  spend  money  foolishly,  and 
upon  things  which  were  better  not  purchased. 

The  feeling  that  what  we  do  ought  to  meet  the 
approval  of  other  nations,  for  example,  rather  than 
our  own  approval.  This  is  because  as  a  nation  and 
as  individuals  we  are  stillrather  more  vain  than  proud. 

Editor  of  an  educational  magazine: 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  best  interests  of  the 
country  I  regard  the  greatest  weakness  and  the 
greatest  source  of  danger  to  be  the  tendency  to  main 
tain  "solidarity"  among  various  classes.  "The 
solidarity  of  women"-  -  "the  solidarity  of  Roman 
Catholics"-—  "the  solidarity  of  the  German — Irish- 
Italian  vote."  The  future  of  the  Democracy  de 
mands  that  we  shall  work  together  and  not  stand 
apart,  preserving  and  abetting  social,  racial,  religious 
antagonisms. 

Another  weakness  is  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  a 
large  number  of  Americans  to  leave  important  re 
sponsibilities  to  the  few.  Too  little  understanding 
of  public  questions  and  the  workings  of  practical 


320  American  Ideals 

politics.  Too  little  real  interest  in  the  public  school. 
Too  little  comprehension  of  the  causes  of  social  un 
rest. 

While  things  go  well  with  us  we  are  not  inclined  to 
concern  ourselves  with  the  real  problems  of  the  day. 

Headmaster  of  a  boys'  academy  in  Penn 
sylvania: 

If  the  spirit  of  high  honor  prevailed  throughout  the 
nation,  even  in  the.  far  corners  of  the  same,  as  it 
prevails  in  the  lives  of  many  of  the  best  men  I  know, 
our  nation  would  be  the  most  nearly  ideal  nation  on 
the  face  of  the  earth. 

A  well-known  New  Jersey  city  official  states 
that  our  weaknesses  are 

Selfishness — insincerity — jealousy. 

Tendency  to  destroy  rather  than  to  construct. 

Too  little  attention  given  individually  to  the  seri 
ous  side  of  life. 

Ignorance  concerning  our  public  life  and  officials 
outside  of  knowledge  gathered  from  the  newspapers. 

Too  busy  to  live  up  to  what  we  know  is  right. 

Entertainment  receives  more  consideration  than 
education. 

A  high-school  principal: 

One  of  the  chief  weaknesses  is  an  absence  of 
tenacity  and  a  dearth  of  purpose. 


An  American  Symposium  321 

There  is  also  too  little  of  abstract  philosophical 
thinking  on  any  subject. 

A  religious  director  of  six  thousand  university 
students: 

One  weakness  is  that  of  indulgence.  Our  life  is 
crammed  these  days  with  opportunities  for  relaxing; 
the  picture  show,  the  ball  game,  the  theatre,  the 
novel,  and  the  canoe  grip  the  lives  of  a  great  many 
and  absorb  their  best  energies. 

*         *         *         * 

I  firmly  believe  that  there  are  more  men  of  exalted 
religious  type  in  our  colleges  and  universities  than 
anywhere  else  in  the  world. 

A  public  official  in  Cleveland,  Ohio: 

A  belief  in  our  national  good  luck  which  makes 
us  assume  rather  light-heartedly  that  America  can 
not  help  turning  out  well,  and,  therefore,  indisposes 
us  to  the  labor  of  making  it  turn  out  well. 

Our  tolerance  of  such  evils  as  sensational  newspa 
pers,  debasing  dramatic  exhibitions,  and  overemo- 
tional  motion  picture  shows.  These  are  probably  due 
to  our  not  having  yet  solved  the  problem  of  leisure. 

The  head  of  a  New  York  publishing  house 
says  that  our  weaknesses  are 

A  tendency  to  subordinate  everything  to  making 
money  and  dancing,  and  to  getting  up  societies  for  the 
reformation  of  everything. 


322  American  Ideals 

An  author  of  wide  repute  finds  three  failures 
in  our  ideals: 

Excessive  popular  influence  in  politics. 
Lack  of  information  about  European  affairs. 
Too  much  self-confidence  and  complaisance. 

A  leading  sociologist  writes: 

The  chief  point  of  weakness  is  the  identifying  of 
success  in  life  with  money-making  or  ordinary  com 
mercial  success.  This  comes  from  the  past  ascend 
ancy  of  business  men  in  shaping  the  ideals  of 
Americans.  Although  within  the  last  ten  years  the 
revelations  of  business  morals  have  weakened  some 
what  this  ascendancy,  nevertheless,  even  to-day,  the 
public  gives  too  much  heed  to  the  business  class  and 
too  little  to  such  champions  of  permanent  value,  as 
poets,  artists,  thinkers,  educators,  social  workers, 
physicians,  eugenists,  economists,  and  geologists. 

A  second  point  of  weakness  is  the  excessive  rever 
ence  on  the  part  of  the  Courts  for  the  rights  of  prop 
erty  in  cases  in  which  the  management  of  property 
comes  into  conflict  with  the  life,  wealth,  or  happiness 
of  human  beings,  with  the  interest  of  society,  or  with 
the  vitality  of  the  race. 

A  professor  in  Baylor  University,  Texas,  con- 
sidersourneed  of  improvement  to  lie  in  relation  to 

The  disintegrating  factors  of  selfishness  and  com 
petition  over  against  the  necessity  of  the  community 


An  American  Symposium  323 

spirit,  the  brotherly  life,  and  the  outward  expression 
of  it  in  organized  cooperation. 

The  secretary  of  a  large  foundation  fund  con 
siders  that  our  failures  consist  in 

Personal  preferment  and  pleasures  at  any  cost. 

The  refusal  of  so  many  to  think,  to  face  the  facts, 
and  to  come  to  a  wise  attitude  toward  life  and  to  a 
determination  of  well-thought-out  ideals. 

The  president  of  the  Board  of  Education  in 
an  Eastern  city: 

I  believe  that  we  are  too  greatly  disposed  to  depend 
on  an  optimistic  belief  in  our  ability  to  handle  almost 
any  question,  no  matter  how  limited  our  knowledge 
or  experience  may  be.  The  thorough  and  painstak 
ing  effort  and  specialized  knowledge  of  which  we  have 
seen  recent  examples  in  other  nations,  are  not,  in  my 
opinion,  sufficiently  valued  by  our  people. 

The  head  of  a  large  military  academy  in  the 
Middle  West  reports  our  failures  in  the  follow 
ing  directions: 

Rural  depopulation  and  urban  congestion. 

Race  suicide  of  the  fittest  and  overbreeding  by  the 
unfit. 

Mental  superficiality  as  manifested  by  a  lack  of 
thoroughness  in  almost  every  line  of  work,  by  the 
patronage  of  cheap  literature,  cheap  music,  degrading 


324  American  Ideals 

plays,    and   the   almost   total   eclipse  of  the   inner 
man. 

As  a  result  of  this  mental  superficiality  the  preva 
lence  of  half-baked  and  prejudiced  opinions  on  mat 
ters  of  local  or  national  importance  and  almost  total 
ignorance  of  the  great  thoughts  of  the  past. 

An  analysis  of  the  answers  of  one  hundred 
men  as  to  the  chief  points  of  weakness  in  our 
contemporary  American  life,  from  which  the 
preceding  quotations  have  been  taken,  reveals 
the  following  facts : 

(The  table  below  gives  the  number  of  times  the 
designated  weaknesses  were  mentioned.) 

No.  times 
mentioned 

Materialism,  dominance  of  money,  worship  of 

bigness,  deference  to  material  success  ...  27 

Want  of  thoroughness,  superficiality  .      ...  20 

Extravagance  and  wastefulness 16 

Self-indulgence  and  complacency        .      .      .      .  15 
Lack  of  perspective  and  ignorance  of  foreign 

nations 14 

Lack  of  public  responsibility  generally    ...  13 
Breaking  up  of  home  life  and  lack  of  home  train 
ing  for  children 9 

Shallowness  in   religion 8 

Evasion  of  law  when  possible  without  being 

caught       8 

Lack  of  respect  for  intellect 6 


An  American  Symposium  325 

No.   times 
mentioned 

Class  legislation  and  class  solidarity     ...  5 

Imitativeness,  lack   of  independence     ...  4 
Exaggerated  opinion   of  the   greatness   of  the 

United  States 4 

Intemperance  in  liquor,  eating,  etc 3 

Love  of  display 3 

Lack  of  education  for  liberal  leisure  ....  2 

Irresponsible  journalism 2 

Unemployment 2 

" Organizations"  for  everything 2 

Unequal  distribution  of  wealth I 

Danger  of  our  mixed  population I 

The  conclusion  forced  upon  us  by  these  testi 
monies  is  that  while  we  have  not  yet  attained 
our  ideals  as  a  people,  we  have  become  increas 
ingly  conscious  of  them.  Our  civilization  has 
not  reached  the  highest  greatness,  but  it  con 
tains  the  elements  of  that  greatness.  Our  men 
and  women  are  not  as  yet  full  statured,  but  they 
are  growing. 

These  trenchant  words  of  some  of  our  best 
types  of  Americans  remind  us  that  democracy 
is  still  an  earth  spirit  struggling  often  with 
indifferent  success  to  lift  itself  above  the  petty 
intrigues  of  politicians,  and  rising  only  occasion 
ally  to  the  "vision  splendid"  of  fraternal  equality 
and  sure  justice.  We  are  still  the  worshippers 


326  American  Ideals 

of  physical  force  and  material  rewards.  Our 
idols  have  feet  of  clay.  Our  courts  still  mete 
out  limping  justice.  Our  education  drives  itself 
into  the  grooves  of  money  and  the  making  of  a 
living  rather  than  the  building  of  strong  man 
hood  and  womanhood.  We  still  fill  the  air  of 
our  modern  Babylons  with  the  strident  cries 
of  sensual  satisfactions,  and  we  barter  our  birth 
right  for  a  mess  of  pottage  that  only  adds  to  our 
fleshly  hunger  and  fails  to  feed  our  famishing 
souls.  Our  much  vaunted  civilization  proves 
to  be  all  too  frequently  in  hours  of  crisis  an  un 
substantial  dream,  and  like  our  religion  it  is 
too  often  but  a  thin  cloak  to  cover  the  naked 
ness  and  selfish  sordidness  of  perverse  and  pride- 
filled  hearts. 

No  thoughtful  student  of  our  times  is  blind 
enough  to  delude  himself  into  sublime  ease  of 
mind  and  spirit,  even  while  beholding  our 
philanthropies,  our  pensions,  and  our  peace 
policies  that  bedeck  the  outward  surface  of  our 
modernity.  No  one  who  hears  the  confused 
wrangling  of  labor  at  Bayonne  and  in  many  a 
mining  and  industrial  camp  will  wrap  the  man 
tle  of  self-sufficiency  aHout  him  and  cry,  "We 
are  the  People!  Wisdom  and  virtue  will  die 
with  us!"  Our  finest  progress  toward  the  sense 


An  American  Symposium  327 

of  Beauty  and  inward  Power  is  but,  in  the  words 
of  Tennyson, 

The  earliest  pipe  of  half-awakened  birds. 

Our  ideals  are  too  far  from  realization  to  per 
mit  of  boasting;  they  are  not  as  yet  fixed  guiding 
stars. 

Yet  I  venture  to  say  that  no  one  can  read 
these  frank  and  earnest  answers  of  contempo 
rary  Americans,    residing  in  widely  separated 
areas  and  employed  in  diverse  callings,  without 
\     feeling  that  underneath  even  the   most  pessi- 
T"  mistic  of  them  there  runs  a  sense,  not  of  failing, 
but  of  succeeding,  even  if  slowly,  in  the  perfect 
ing  of  our  life  of  business  and  public  and  private 
institutions.     The  private  letters  that  accom 
panied  these  witnesses  abound  in  faith  and  hope. 
The    very   consciousness    of  the    unattained 
y/  ideals  that  our  weaknesses  exemplify  are  the 
surest  signs  of  encouragement.     The  ideals  of  a 
people    are    always    the    forerunners    of   their 
practice,  and  when  a  higher  ideal  is  sighted  or 
taken  in  place  of  a  lower  one,  the  change  in 
practice  is  sure  to  follow. 

Modern  Christians  do  not  always  (as  ancient 
pagans  did  not)  exhibit  the  graces  of  mercy  and 


328  American  Ideals 

brotherly  love;  but  the  members  of  the  present- 
day  Christian  civilization  in  America  feel  what 
men  in  the  old  Roman  age  did  not  feel — that  in 
the  failure  to  rise  to  the  loftiest  height  of  social 
cooperation  with  their  fellows  they  are  dropping 
below  the  standards  of  true  men.  The  ideal  of 
"service"  easily  leads  all  others  in  the  above 
answers.  The  danger  of  the  old  pagan  civiliza 
tion,  which  placed  brute  force  and  violence, 
above  brotherhood  and  the  constructive  arts  of 
peace,  lay  not  merely  in  its  deeds  of  violence 
but  in  its  admiration  and  worship  of  such  exter 
nal  agencies  as  the  true  ideals  of  greatness. 
Spiritual  ideals  did  not  have  a  chance  even  in  the 
mind. 

It  is  here  that  America  is  learning  the  first 
great  lesson  in  national  and  individual  idealism 
— the  grasping  of  the  truth  that  physical  domi 
nance  and  the  vulgar,  selfish  pursuit  of  money 
as  an  end  in  itself  are  not  the  highest  manifesta 
tions  of  power.  The  man  who  delves  into  the 
American  motives  will  find  this  in  general  to  be 
true.  This  is  a  long  step  in  idealism.  To  be 
sure  many  of  the  brutish  and  sordid  relics  of 
paganism  and  barbarism  are  yet  evident  among 
us  and  seem  quite  deeply  rooted  in  human  na 
ture;  but  these  do  not  survive  in  our  admiration 


An  American  Symposium  329 

or  approval,  and  I  believe  that  they  are  gradually 
losing  their  influence  over  our  thought — the 
centre  from  which  all  action  springs.  This  is 
the  triumph  of  American  idealism. 

Even  the  man  who  has  not  attained  to  his 
ideals  finds  them  ever  present  in  the  anticipation 
of  his  heart.  He  sees  them  realized  in  others 
and  admires  them  from  afar:  and  here  in 
America  we  have  a  remarkable  tendency  to  be 
come  what  we  admire.  We  are,  as  a  nation, 
great  enough  to  admire  the  character  of  Lincoln 
and  to  revere  his  name  more  and  more  as  the 
days  of  our  years  go  by.  We  are  increasingly 
conscious  of  that  high-mindedness  and  states 
manlike  bearing  exhibited  by  the  almost  ideal 
Secretary  of  State,  John  Hay;  and  more  than  one 
of  late  has  remarked  with  peculiar  pride  these 
qualities  of  devotion  to  humanity's  cause 
shining  so  transparently  in  the  life  of  Lincoln, 
and  the  choice,  thoughtful  culture  of  Mr.  Hay, 
appearing  together  in  the  acts  and  habits  of  our 
President,  Woodrow  Wilson. 

The  final  aim  of  all  great  ideals  is  to  make 
great  men.  That  cause  is  strong,  as  Lowell  has 
said,  which  has  not  a  multitude  but  one  strong 
man  behind  it.  It  should  be  the  high  aim  of  our 
American  idealism  to  lift  the  nation  above  its 


330  American  Ideals 

weakness  and  frailty  by  the  production  of  men 
of  quality,  men  of  larger  mental  mould,  men  of 
firmer  moral  fibre,  men  who,  whether  storms  or 
sunshine  come,  can  be  depended  upon  to  say  as 
did  Seneca's  pilot: 

"O  Neptune:  you  may  save  me  if  you  will; 
you  may  sink  me  if  you  will;  but  whatever 
happens,  I  shall  keep  my  rudder  true/' 


CHAPTER  XI 
AMERICA  COMING  OF  AGE 

Forever  alive,  forever  forward, 

Stately,  solemn,  sad,  withdrawn,  baffled,  mad,  tur 
bulent,  feeble,  dissatisfied, 

Desperate,  proud,  fond,  sick,  accepted  by  men,  re 
jected  by  men, 

They  go!     They  go!     I  know  that  they  go,  but  I 
know  not  where  they  go, 

But  I  know  that  they  go  toward  the  best — toward 
something  great. 

WALT  WHITMAN. 

The  United  States  will  never  see  fifty  again;  nor  a 
hundred.     We  are  full  grown. 

OWEN  WISTER. 


CHAPTER  XI 
AMERICA  COMING  OF  AGE 
GEORGE  WADE,  the  sculptor,  once  said: 

I  could  tell  an  American  immediately,  not  by 
manner,  walk,  or  clothes,  or  anything  external,  but 
by  the  peculiar  expression  of  his  eye.  It  is  an  ex 
pression  I  find  hard  to  analyze.  It  is  a  look  which 
seems  to  embrace  the  future  rather  than  the  present 
or  the  past.  The  American  has  the  open-eyed  look  of 
confident  anticipation. 

Emerson  was  not  the  only  one  who  has  called 
America  another  term  for  opportunity.  Many  a 
prophet  has  seen  envisaged  on  this  Western  con 
tinent  an  all-encompassing  future  civilization, 
a  land  of  promise  without  parallel,  the  country 
of  the  new  hope. 

"  Borne  over  the  Atlantic,"  cried  the  prophetic 
Carlyle  in  his  warning  to  Europe,  "to  the  closing 
ear  of  Louis,  king  by  the  grace  of  God,  what 
sounds  are  these — muffled,  ominous,  new  in  our 
centuries?  Boston  Harbor  is  black  with  un- 

333 


334  American  Ideals 

expected  tea;  behold  a  Pennsylvania  congress 
gather;  and  ere  long,  on  Bunker  Hill,  Democ 
racy  announcing,  in  rifle  volleys  death-winged, 
under  her  star  banner,  to  the  tune  of  Yankee- 
doodle-do,  that  she  is  born,  and,  whirlwind-like, 
will  envelop  the  whole  world!" 

Prophecy  has  been  made  history  and  America 
has  become  of  age.  Her  Alps  are  passed;  her 
Italy  lies  before  her.  With  face  still  shining 
in  youthful  hope  and  unquenched  optimism, 
America  yet  belongs  to  the  Party  of  the  Present, 
but  she  is  becoming  interested  in  the  Party  of 
the  Future. 

America  has  been  called  a  Providential  re 
public.  By  the  nature  of  an  unseen  and  often 
unappreciated  cosmic  force  she  has  been  in 
evitably  urged  far  ahead  of  the  dreams  of  her 
founders.  The  processes  of  the  years  have 
gradually  widened  her  boundaries.  To  the  south 
came  Texas  and  New  Mexico  and  the  French 
lands  where  Napoleon  had  dreamed  of  making 
a  new  empire  in  the  West  for  France.  Later  in 
a  hundred  days  of  war,  which  we  at  the  time 
could  scarcely  understand,  the  West  Indies 
became  America's  southern  boundaries.  It 
was  as  if  propelled  by  this  irresistible  force  of 
destiny  that  Lewis  and  Clarke  forged  their  way 


America  Coming  of  Age  335 

through  the  western  wilderness  and  "planted 
our  banners  by  the  shores  of  the  Peaceful  Sea." 
Then  the  nation  that  never  dreamed  of  conquest 
found  Alaska  as  her  child  in  the  frozen  North, 
and  her  star  of  empire  was  to  lead  her  yet 
farther,  even  toward  the  Eastern  sunrise,  until 
her  West  became  East,  and  the  eagle  in  her 
flight  found  her  stepping-stones  upon  the  isles 
of  the  Pacific  and  in  distant  Southern  Seas. 
It  was  not  by  chance  that  the  hand  of  Jefferson 
wrote  with  intuitive  fingers  an  instrument  of 
"delegated  powers"  that  has  served  as  chart 
and  compass  over  these  new  and  untried  waters. 
A  Greater  Hand  moved  the  pen  whose  writing 
has  served  so  well  to  guide  a  new  race  of  men  in 
their  purposed  destiny.  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
in  a  memorable  address  with  which  he  dedicated 
the  St.  Louis  Exposition,  said,  "As  is  so  often 
the  case  in  nature,  the  law  of  development  of  a 
living  organism  showed  itself  in  its  actual 
workings  to  be  wiser  than  the  wisdom  of  the 


wisest." 


This  new  republic,  carved  out  of  the  unknown, 
the  unexpected,  is  no  longer  an  experiment.  It 
has  been  tried  by  war  and  by  peace,  by  adversity 
and  by  prosperity.  American  ideals  are  facts 
for  which  men  have  dared  to  die. 


336  American  Ideals 

Here  she  has  shown  her  capacity,  not  only  to 
tame  a  wilderness  and  to  irrigate  deserts,  but 
also  to  govern  successfully  ICXD,OOO,OOO  of  the 
most  diverse  populations  known  on  the  face  of 
the  earth.  Here  she  has  settled  once  for  all 
time  her  union  of  states  in  a  dolorous  but  de 
livering  civil  war.  She  has  gone  out  to  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  with  her  commerce 
and  her  colonists.  By  adhering  through  many 
a  conflict  to  sound  economics,  she  has  estab 
lished  her  financial  credit  on  a  basis  as  firm  and 
trustworthy  as  that  of  any  nation  beneath  the 
sun.  Her  home  industries  are  attended  by  a 
prosperity  at  once  both  the  envy  and  the  emula 
tion  of  her  national  neighbors.  She  has  built 
through  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  a  waterway  as 
unprecedented  in  its  conception  and  construction 
as  it  is,  in  its  equal  access  to  all  the  world,  sig 
nificant  of  human  serviceableness.  Scarcely 
an  achievement  known  to  modern  science  is  a 
novelty  in  America.  Already  the  United  States 
has  revealed  herself  as  her  own  most  sedulous 
policeman,  and  her  reforms  of  herself  have  been 
as  startling  as  the  perils  they  foreshadowed 
have  been  ominous.  She  has  raised  up  great 
men,  great  political  parties,  great  schools,  and 
great  colleges.  She  has  become  the  fostering 


America  Coming  of  Age  337 

mother  of  some  of  the  finest  charities,  the  great 
est  railroads,  and  the  most  prodigious  manu 
facturing  and  business  corporations  extant.  In 
this  vast  world  drama  of  modernity  enacted 
before  the  eyes  of  men  there  pass  indescribable 
scenes  filled  with  laborers,  technicians,  capital 
ists,  builders  of  cities  and  tunnels,  makers  of  lit 
erature  and  laws,  seers  and  saints  of  a  new 
world  of  imagination  and  religion,  and  a  pro 
cession  well-nigh  endless  of  strong,  intrepid 
youth. 

It  is  a  story  of  enchantment,  this  shining 
record  of  progress  and  freedom  of  America  com 
ing  of  age.  These  things  of  the  hand  and  the 
mind  and  spirit  she  has  accomplished  "without 
an  ally  and  without  an  enemy"  among  the 
nations.  She  stands  to-day  upon  the  hilltop, 
and  they  that  look  upon  her  achievements  are 
like  them  that  dream. 

With  such  unexampled  growth,  with  a  face 
still  radiant  with  the  light  of  her  morning, 
America  is  to-day  entering  upon  a  new  period — 
the  period  of  maturity.  Livingstone,  at  the  end 
of  his  daring  and  successful  discoveries  in  the 
heart  of  the  Dark  Continent,  said:  "The  end  of 
the  exploration  is  the  beginning  of  the  enter- 


338  American  Ideals 

prise."  It  is  with  some  such  feeling  that  the 
American,  rich  in  his  unexpressed  idealism,  cap 
able  in  the  realm  of  his  spirit  and  imagination 
as  in  the  sphere  of  his  material  world,  faces  the 
light  of  a  new  era. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  every  hour  in  a 
nation's  progress  is  a  critical  hour,  a  sense  in 
which  every  day  is  doomsday.  In  a  philosophical 
mind  every  hour  marks  the  end  of  an  era,  and 
every  year  sets  its  sign  on  a  new  order  of  ages. 
In  a  certain  sense  a  country  is  always  passing 
through  a  transition  period,  and  the  rapidity 
with  which  the  life  of  yesterday  coalesces  with 
the  life  of  to-day  in  this  strangely  progressive 
land  has  often  puzzled  and  baffled  the  contem 
porary  prophet  and  historian  who  has  endeavored 
to  restrict  America  within  distinctive  epochs. 
But  there  come  times  in  the  career  of  nations  as 
of  individuals,  so  plain  that  he  who  runs  may 
read,  when  there  is  a  necessary  cleavage  between 
the  past  and  the  future,  and  when  a  people, 
especially,  are  pressed  forward  as  by  a  dynamic 
force  into  a  new  and  inevitable  destiny. 

One  of  these  moments  was  recorded  when 
these  United  States  swept  forward  alone  into  a 
strange  world  of  political  responsibility — that 
memorable  hour  of  transfer  of  national  leader- 


America  Coming  of  Age  339 

ship  from  British  to  American  hands.  Another 
fixed  and  unforgettable  point  of  duration  marked 
the  day  when  over  the  martyred  form  of  Lincoln 
the  North  and  the  South  clasped  hands  of  un 
divided  citizenship.  And  when  the  Book  of 
History  is  fully  written  there  will  be  at  least 
one  other  turning  of  the  tide  in  America  there 
portrayed.  It  will  be  the  painting  of  the  days 
our  eyes  are  now  beholding,  when  the  thunder 
of  cannon  and  the  hiss  of  torpedoes  are  rever 
berating  in  the  ears  of  a  war-maddened  world, 
and  America  almost  alone  stands  apart,  the 
fateful  spectator  and  arbiter  of  this  "Iliad  of 
woes/'  In  these  days  of  changing  and  tangled 
destiny  in  the  life  of  European  nations,  when 
the  United  States  is  called  upon  to  bear  back 
to  Europe  some  light  from  the  torch  which  was 
kindled  there  and  which  has  brightened  into  a 
steady  flame  in  America's  hand,  in  these  hours 
when  the  country's  ideals  and  institutions  and 
men  are  put  to  the  test  as  perhaps  never  before, 
we  must  perforce  choose  our  path  with  a  fresh 
directive  eye;  we  must  stamp  our  present  period 
with  a  new  reappraisement. 

What  ideals  now  emerging  must  emerge, 
if  we  are  true  to  ourselves,  to  awaken  our  present 
energies,  to  give  tonic  and  timbre  to  our  future 


340  American  Ideals 

hopes?  What  sleeping,  inarticulate  dreams  are 
being  rudely  disturbed  and  dragged  forcibly  out 
into  the  light  of  common  day  by  this  doomful 
cataclysm  of  war? 

If  we  mistake  not,  they  are  the  ideals  and  the 
dreams  that  prefigure  America's  coming  of  age. 
They  are  the  ideas  and  the  convictions  which  will 
foreshadow  the  new  creative  idealism  of  the 
inner  spirit  of  America,  rising  out  and  above  the 
foundations  of  her  vast  material  conquests  and 
growing  life.  Mr.  A.  E.  Zimmern,  the  don  of 
Oxford,  in  his  essay  entitled  "Seven  Months  in 
America,"  calls  America  "a  state  of  mind."  It 
is  in  a  change  of  this  American  "state  of  mind," 
or  perhaps  in  an  opening  of  an  untried  or  unoccu 
pied  portion  of  it,  the  part  that  lies  in  the  realm 
of  the  spirit  and  the  resources  of  the  higher 
understanding,  that  she  is  to  see  herself  in  these 
new  days  of  her  richer  maturity.  America  is 
facing  a  mighty  test  of  her  ideals.  The  spirit 
of  Democracy,  which  at  the  centre  is  brother 
hood,  or  meant  to  be,  is  on  trial.  The  informing 
and  vital  breath  of  the  country's  religion  will  be 
fanned  into  new  flame  or  will  be  withered  by 
these  days.  The  voice  of  the  nation's  con 
science,  which  is  the  voice  of  God,  will  be  heard 
afresh,  and  there  will  be  a  new  soul's  awakening. 


America  Coming  of  Age  341 

Those  in  America  who  have  been  turning  their 
new  and  leisured  thought  to  art,  to  literature, 
or  to  the  putting  of  their  moral  and  spiritual 
house  in  order,  will  find  in  the  massive  events  of 
these  heart-stirring  hours  meanings  that  are  not 
found  in  pictures  or  books  or  written  on  our 
altar  cloths. 

There  are  two  great  words  frequently  heard  in 
the  United  States  these  days,  standing  for  two  of 
the  inherent  ideals  of  the  nation:  these  words  are 
Peace  and  Humanity.  These  words  stand  for 
aims  deeply  embedded  in  the  original  life  of  the 
nation;  they  belong  to  our  first  traditions;  they 
breathe  the  atmosphere  of  the  real  and  essential 
existence  of  America  which  is  rooted  in  a  spirit 
of  equal  justice  and  flowers  in  humanitarian 
sympathy  on  the  high  levels  of  man's  brother 
hood  with  man.  It  is  for  the  revelation  and  the 
incarnate  expression  of  these  great  ideals  that 
all  our  previous  history  has  prepared  the  way. 
It  was  to  find  an  arena  for  this  wider  and  larger 
sense  of  humanity  that  our  early  forefather 
pioneers  in  New  England,  in  Virginia,  and  the 
South,  "under  such  sullen  and  averted  stars," 
laid  the  forests  and  built  their  homes  and  schools 
in  this  western  hemisphere.  It  has  been  in 


342  American  Ideals 

prelude  to  these  ideals,  these  higher  and  far- 
sweeping  dreams  of  the  human  spirit  and 
imagination,  that  the  later  sons  of  the  West  have 
enlarged  the  borders  of  their  agriculture,  and 
have  forged  out  their  enormous  scientific  devel 
opments  in  steam  machinery,  in  electrical, 
economic,  and  political  advance.  It  is  for  such 
ideals  that  the  Republic  finds  its  material  civil 
ization  a  meaningful  ministrant  and  without 
which  all  its  splendid  wealth  and  earthly  re 
sources  are  as  pointless  as  the  tinkling  of  a  tem 
ple  bell.  Into  this  new  idealism  of  a  world  made 
peaceful  for  the  sake  of  its  most  precious  prod 
ucts — the  members  of  the  human  race — our 
country  has  been  slowly  moving,  and  the  wars 
of  the  nations  have  accelerated  the  wheels  of  its 
progress. 

Why  is  America  at  the  daybreak  of  a  new 
period  of  her  constructive  history  predisposed 
and  pledged  to  peace?  Why  is  the  ideal  of  be 
ing  the  peacemaker  among  the  nations  attrac 
tive  in  her  eyes?  It  is  because  we  came  first 
to  these  western  shores  as  searchers  for  this 
spiritual,  peaceful  inheritance;  it  is  because  deep 
in  the  inner  consciousness  of  Americans  there 
has  always  persisted  the  dim  realization  that 
if  we  lose  this  ideal,  notwithstanding  all  the 


America  Coming  of  Age  343 

opulence  of  our  power  and  wealth,  we  shall  be 
poor  indeed.  "Peace  and  Liberty" — these  are 
America's  sovereign  words.  They  have  been 
the  watchwords  of  our  greatest  leaders. 

Washington  said:  "My  first  wish  is  to  see  this 
plague  of  mankind  (war)  banished  from  the 
earth.  We  have  experienced  enough  of  its  evils 
in  this  country  to  know  that  it  must  not  be  wan 
tonly  or  unnecessarily  entered  upon." 

Grant  had  reason  to  understand  the  full  signif 
icance  of  his  words  when,  out  of  a  heart  weary 
with  war,  he  cried:  "Let  us  have  peace!"  The 
phrase  of  Sherman,  "War  is  hell!"  has  become 
an  epigram  in  the  country,  as  trite  as  it  is  true, 
and  stands  in  the  common  sentiment  beside  the 
prayer  of  the  dying  Lincoln  that  "this  mighty 
scourge  of  war  might  speedily  pass  away."  The 
name  of  one  of  America's  most  honored  states 
men,  John  Hay,  is  associated  inextricably  with 
the  Golden  Rule  policy  of  peace  and  good  will, 
both  at  home  and  abroad,  the  ideal  of  men  of 
quality.  In  his  address  before  the  Press  Parlia 
ment  of  the  World  at  the  Louisiana  Purchase 
Exposition  at  St.  Louis  in  1904,  Mr.  Hay  uttered 
words  pregnant  with  the  national  idealism  and 
worthy  to  be  framed  above  the  desk  of  every 
newspaper  editor  in  this  and  in  every  land: 


344  American  Ideals 

ft If  the  press  of  the  world  would  adopt  and  per 
sist  in  the  high  resolve  that  war  should  be  no 
more,  the  clangor  of  arms  would  cease  from  the 
rising  of  the  sun  to  its  going  down,  and  we  could 
fancy  that  at  last  our  ears,  no  longer  stunned 
by  the  din  of  armies,  might  hear  the  morning 
stars  singing  together  and  all  the  sons  of  God 
shouting  for  joy." 

No  nation  has  followed  more  devotedly  in  the 
wake  of  its  statesmen's  ideals  in  pioneering  the 
causes  of  arbitration;  no  nation  has  poured  out 
its  money  more  lavishly  in  the  interests  of  per 
manent  peace.  Even  when  there  is  no  peace 
in  the  sight  of  men,  the  American  sees  it  afar 
off  and  seeks  it  sometimes  almost  blindly,  be 
cause  his  wish  is  the  measure  of  his  mind.  In 
this  regard  a  nation's  ideal,  like  that  of  a  man,  is 
estimated  by  what  he  wants  quite  as  much  as  by 
what  he  gets.  In  the  United  States  the  sign  of 
peace  is  a  watermark  of  the  racial  consciousness. 
It  belongs  to  us  as  truly  as  do  our  industries,  it 
is  the  pledge  and  the  prerequisite  of  our  indus 
tries — the  eternal  condition  without  which 
American  freedom  is  not. 

It  is  with  such  heritage  at  home,  and  with 
strains  of  indebtedness  to  other  nations  we  too 
seldom  pause  to  consider,  that  we  are  bound  and 


America  Coming  of  Age  345 

indissolubly  enmeshed  in  the  peace  and  progress 
of  mankind.  It  is  sometimes  overlooked  both  by 
our  foreign  neighbors  and  our  own  people  that 
we  did  not  begin  in  America.  Many  of  our  insti 
tutions  came  as  it  were  by  enchantment,  full 
statured  in  their  transfer  from  the  old  to  this 
new  world.  The  "clouds  of  glory"  of  American 
spiritual  life  trail  far  back  into  distant  Asia. 
Many  of  the  roots  of  romance  and  insight, 
many  a  strain  of  thought  and  tradition,  followed 
to  its  source  would  reach  to  France  and  Spain 
and  England,  whose  children  brought  their 
visions  and  their  culture  Americaward.  When 
the  hard,  steel-like  face  of  the  seemingly  ma 
terialistic  American  lights  up  before  the  admi 
ration  of  the  beautiful,  the  chivalrous;  when  the 
warm  tones  of  emotional  feeling  sweep  the 
heartstrings  of  the  practical  business  man,  it 
is  a  strain  of  the  Latin  temperament  that  is 
speaking,  it  says  to  those  who  are  most  intent: 
"You  must  be  a  great  and  spiritual  land,  Amer 
ica,  for  you  are  the  offspring  of  all  that  is  most 
excellent  in  this  Old  World  from  which  you  have 
drawn  your  life.  You  must  be  great  for  your 
own  sake,  and  also  for  us  who  are  to  be  more  and 
more  dependent  upon  you  for  that  eternal 
spring  of  youth,  and  that  priceless  gift  of  peace 


346  American  Ideals 

with  liberty  of  which  you  are  the  embodiment 
among  the  nations." 

But  it  is  not  the  full  story  of  America's  coming 
of  age  to  repeat  that  she  has  been  conceived  and 
nourished  and  has  grown  to  maturity  in  the 
atmosphere  of  peace.  There  is  another  and 
even  a  more  fundamental  ideal  for  which  this 
land  is  renowned.  A  greater  word  than  peace 
to  the  new  western  world  is  this  word — Hu 
manity.  It  is  for  humanity,  not  in  the  abstract, 
not  merely  in  the  masses,  not  in  the  form  of 
nations  entirely,  but  in  the  concrete  human  in 
dividual  that  America  is  to  be  more  and  more  a 
specialist.  There  is  no  peace  of  nations  where 
there  is  no  peace  in  the  heart  of  the  individuals 
who  compose  those  nations.  There  is  no  unity 
worthy  of  the  name  in  monarchy  or  democracy 
where  there  is  no  harmony  and  disciplined  power 
in  the  units  who  unite.  America  can  never 
be  truly  great  and  truly  free,  she  can  never 
expect  peace  to  reign  within  her  borders,  nor 
can  she  dream  of  peacemaking  around  the  world, 
until  she  awakens  anew  to  the  thought  that  the 
institution  is  but  the  elongated  shadow  of  the 
man;  that  the  body  corporate  can  advance  no 
farther  than  the  body  individual  has  advanced, 
and  that  the  secret  of  any  lasting  renown  among 


America  Coming  of  Age  347 

the  races  of  men  resides  in  the  degree  in  which 
great  ideals  and  high  convictions  have  caught 
fire  in  the  souls  of  individual  men — men  one  by 
one.  This  is  the  high  business  of  democracy, 
this  individualism  of  the  private  soul,  this  rivet 
ing  the  strength  of  the  nation  to  the  disciplined 
wills  and  the  enlarged  hearts  of  persons,  who 
are  more  potent  than  policies.  This  is  building 
the  national  temple  with  the  "living  stones" 
of  human  personalities  who  have  been  awakened 
to  the  superb  consciousness  and  eternal  dignity 
of  themselves.  That  nation  that  strengthens 
its  individuals  strengthens  itself,  and  in  the 
surest  manner  possible.  It  is  the  most  unfail 
ing  patriotism  that  anchors  its  hope  not  in 
chancelleries,  nor  in  admiralties,  but  in  the 
inflexible  purposes  of  righteousness  in  the  hearts 
and  consciences  of  the  great  men  and  women 
whom  individual  patriotism  has  made. 

To  draw  an  illustration  from  the  pages  of 
celestial  wisdom,  there  was  a  time  in  the  days  of 
the  King  Josiah  when  the  imperial  splendor  of 
Judah  seemed  about  to  take  precedence  over 
the  private  life  of  the  individual.  The  nation, 
the  masses,  the  armies,  the  government,  and  the 
material  power  were  more  and  more.  The 
people,  dazzled  with  the  glory  of  might  and 


348  American  Ideals 

things,  cried:  "The  days  of  our  David  have 
returned."  Before  the  eyes  of  the  little  Jewish 
Kingdom  there  passed  only  visions  splendid  of 
promised  lands  and  political  power  for  the  na 
tion.  The  man  was  lost  in  the  crowd. 

Suddenly  there  comes  a  crash.  The  king 
falls  upon  the  bloody  field  of  Megiddo,  Judah 
as  a  nation  goes  to  pieces,  is  carried  captive  to 
Babylon  by  Nebuchadnezzar.  On  the  banks 
of  the  Chebar  where  the  captive  people  were 
set  to  work,  after  the  blast  of  imperialism  and 
material  worship  had  passed,  we  are  shown  that 
for  the  first  time  in  their  history  the  God  of 
ancient  Judaism  began  to  speak  to  each  in 
dividual,  to  address  not  the  nation  but  the 
person — man  by  man.  Heretofore  the  Jew  had 
said:  "These  messages  are  not  for  me,  they  are 
for  the  nation;  our  God  is  too  political  to  be 
personal,  too  zealous  for  the  mass  to  care  for 
me."  The  very  sense  of  loyalty  to  the  nation, 
the  working  for  the  matchless  splendor  of 
Judah,  had  obscured  the  rights  of  the  individual 
soul.  In  their  exile,  in  their  disassociation  from 
corporate  satisfactions,  they  found  their  souls. 

It  is  somewhat  thus  that  one  discovers,  here 
and  there  atleast,inthe  United  States  a  tendency 
to  pass  out  of  the  "age  of  arithmetic"  into  the 


America  Coming  of  Age  349 

age  of  the  adornment  of  the  individual  spirit. 
Even  our  socialized  service  has  been,  like  Judah's 
patriotism,  an  obstacle  to  the  development  of 
those  individual  ideals  without  which  no  na 
tional  ideal  is  meaningful. 

America  has  all  the  conditions  of  a  great 
civilization,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that 
in  the  highest  sense  her  civilization  is  not  yet 
great,  she  has  not  achieved  the  full  use  of  her 
wings.  There  is  indication  that  the  people  who 
have  seen  with  clear  eyes  during  these  days  of 
world  war,  noting  the  fact  that  great  materiali 
ties  or  great  aristocracies  are  not  synonymous 
with  great  humanities,  are  perceiving  that  a 
high  civilization  can  never  be  truly  defined  in 
terms  of  physical  armament  or  by  such  words 
as  bulk,  and  size,  and  far,  and  near.  Great 
states,  like  great  individuals,  belong  to  that 
"remote  concentration"  that  believes  and  stakes 
all  upon  the  sovereignty  of  great  ideas,  of  larger 
education,  of  unbounded  belief  in  individualism 
and  peace  among  men. 

Upon  her  material  and  vast  industrial  bases 
America,  grown  to  maturity,  must  now  build 
carefully  and  faithfully  her  thought  life,  her 
life  of  the  international  and  individual  mind. 
To  learn  to  think  straightly  and  dispassion- 


3 £O  American  Ideals 

ately,  to  add  knowledge  to  knowledge,  and  to 
supplement  her  resistless  energy  by  disciplined 
restraint,  is  the  new  and  peculiar  opportunity  of 
America  coming  of  age. 

The  United  States  in  its  youth  has  learned  the 
lesson  purchased  by  its  own  blood,  that  no 
people  permanently  will  endure  the  subjugation 
of  their  rightful  liberty — that  freedom,  real 
and  not  fanciful,  old  and  also  new,  and  always 
fresh  and  heaven-born,  is  the  one  and  only 
force  that  will  unite  in  undying  cause  the  souls 
of  men.  She  has  yet  to  learn,  at  least  in  its 
larger  and  finer  scope,  that  the  only  element 
in  which  freedom  can  freely  live  and  move  and 
have  its  being,  is  that  of  the  larger  universal 
mind  to  which  the  independence  of  the  in 
dividual  minds  have  contributed  each  a  share. 
Freedom  is  the  ideal  of  America,  and  Wisdom 
must  be  Freedom's  guiding  spirit. 

America  is  coming  of  age  in  a  period  of  un 
exampled  opportunity  in  world  affairs.  Her 
fancied  isolation  has  been  rudely  shattered. 
The  present  world  conflict,  with  its  earth-shak 
ing  influences,  already  by  its  tremendous  effect 
upon  our  economic,  industrial,  and  emotional 
life,  has  awakened  the  nation  at  a  destined 


America  Coming  of  Age  351 

moment  to  the  fact  that  we  can  no  longer  exist 
on  a  continent  apart,  but  that  we  have  become 
by  the  arbitrament  of  time  and  tragedy  of 
circumstance  a  part  and  parcel  of  world  respon 
sibility.  In  her  young  manhood  America  is 
summoned  to  cultivate  an  aptitude  for  altruism, 
and  her  future  as  a  great  or  small  civilization 
hangs  upon  her  present  choice.  Henceforth,  if 
we  are  to  make  the  gift  of  our  forefathers  -that 
sacred  deposit  of  freedom — meaningful,  we  must 
be  ready  with  foresight  and  wisdom  heretofore 
unsummoned  to  take  our  burden  of  world 
obligation,  as  well  as  to  prepare  to  care  for  the 
enlarging  interests  that  are  our  own.  The 
nation's  calamity  howlers  and  the  sword  rattlers 
who  have  been  crying  out  during  the  past  years 
for  armament  have  doubtless  caught  transient 
gleams  of  this  new  order  of  America's  respon 
sibility,  and  even  though  their  remedies  have 
been  so  clumsily  presented,  they  demand  our 
consideration.  Now,  furthermore,  these  are 
joined  by  wiser  and  more  numerous  cooperators 
who  are  drawing  a  sword  never  before  dreamed 
of  in  America,  whose  banner  carries  no  spread- 
eagleism,  no  mere  selfish  slogan  of  "America 
for  Americans,"  save  as  such  battle-cry  may  be 
needful  against  unprecedented  attacks  upon  our 


352  American  Ideals 

homes  and  firesides.  These  leaders  of  the  new 
order  are  the  apostles  of  a  wider  perspective. 
President  Wilson  has  spoken  the  words  of  their 
Magna  Charta  in  his  already  famous  Philadel 
phia  address: 

It  is  sometimes  possible  to  be  so  right  as  not  to 
have  to  fight  for  our  rights. 

It  is  thus  that  we  match  the  patriotism  of  our 
youth  with  the  wisdom  of  our  manhood,  and 
gain  the  seerlike  capacity  to  see  beyond  the 
moment,  beyond  passion,  beyond  hurt  feelings, 
beyond  the  domination  of  the  temporal.  This 
new  America  is  not  the  cowardly  America;  it  is 
the  America  sobering  with  her  age^  rising  in  her 
stirrups,  so  to  speak,  using  the  eyes  of  her  mind 
as  well  as  the  vigor  of  her  national  spurs,  look 
ing  across  the  hilltop — the  nation  refusing  to  be 
stampeded  because  she  "sees  things  steadily 
and  sees  them  whole." 

Our  fathers  brought  to  our  shores  from 
Europe  in  their  frail  sailing  ships  a  precious 
endowment  with  which  to  inform  and  to  actuate 
the  young  republic.  They  were  the  ideals  of 
political  and  religious  freedom.  These  ideals 


America  Coming  of  Age  353 

have  not  yet  been  fully  perfected  in  our  hands, 
but  they  have  been  fostered  and  extended  in  a 
legion  of  ways  among  our  own  citizenship, 
as  well  as  among  those  who  have  sought 
homes  on  our  shores.  These  ideals  have  per 
meated  all  our  institutions.  They  have  made 
an  atmosphere  for  American  hopes  and  Amer 
ican  enterprises.  We  of  to-day  may  be 
called  upon  in  the  new  morning  of  America's 
maturity,  in  the  very  dawn  of  her  spiritual 
strength,  as  the  unhostile  representatives  of  her 
wealth  and  insight,  to  send  back  to  Europe  this 
priceless  spirit  of  idealism,  not  in  the  terms  of 
battleships,  but  in  the  language  of  brotherhood, 
not  wearing  the  insignia  of  world  power,  but 
clothed  in  the  shining  garments  of  Peace. 


THE    END 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Dr.  Lyman,  regarding  religion     ....     224 

Achievement,  American  desire  for S8 

Activity,  law  of  American  being 45 

Agassiz,  Professor,  Ideas  on  Education     ....      167 

Akron,  Ohio,  immigration  classes 243 

Alden,  Henry  Mills 52,60 

America 

Defined  by  Oxford  don 34° 

Growth  of 334 

New  period 337 

Opportunity  and  world  affairs 35° 

Wealth  per  inhabitant l?> l8 

Materialistic 3° 

American 

Active  temperament 5 

Adaptability II2 

Analyzed  by  Frenchman 3 

Anticipating IO 

Bigness  attractive I3»  61,  64 

Business  man 37 

Civilization         349 

Contrasted  with  Britisher,  8,  2O,  8l,  IOI,  104,  115,  118 
Contrasted  with  East  Indian   .      .      58,128,134,136 

Economics 336 

European  rootage 345 

Expansive  imagination 124 

357 


358  Index 

American — Continued  PAGB 

Geniality 60, 67 

Humor 14, 60 

Humanitarian  ideals 103,111 

Industry 15 

Latin  temperament -345 

Love  of  difficulties        83 

Love  of  money        21,116 

Love  of  new  things 112,  113,  118 

Maturity  of 333 

Mysticism 153 

Poor  Men 26 

Providential  Republic        334 

Religious  temperament 206 

Steam  machinery 1 1 

Symposium         287 

Timesavers         12 

Traditions 342 

Annapolis,  Naval  Academy 181 

Arbitration 266,  267 

Aristocracy,  in  England  and  United  States      .      .      .      102 
Arnold,   Matthew,    criticisms   of  America   and   Eng 
land       99,  220,  287 

Art,  present  day  tendencies 341 

Asia,  influence  on  Occident 130 

Austen,  Jane 55 

Austro-Hungarian  immigration 231 

B 

Bacon  regarding  wealth 251 

Banker  of  Boston  regarding  civilization       .      .      .  298 

Banks  as  moulding  forces 193 

Baroda,  Gaekwar  of 139 

Bayonne,  labor  troubles 326 


Index  359 


PAGE 


Bedouin  chief n 

Bergson,  philosophy  of 43,  183 

Best  sellers 54 

Bible  study  in  colleges  and  schools      ....  122,  184 

Bible  versus  Vedanta 137 

Billings,  Josh -  ....  262 

Birthrate         232 

Bismarck  regarding  German  youth 182 

Books,  circulation  of  in  New  York  Public  Library     .  57 

Books  on  America  by  Englishmen 100 

Bowring,  Doctor,  quoted 5 

British  commission  on  education 165 

British  failure  in  Far  East         114 

Broadway  and  the  simple  life .  282 

Brotherhood,  Cain  and  Abel  example        ....  92 

Bryce,  James,  on  lax  enforcement  of  laws       .      .      .  257 

Bryan,  W.  J.,  pictured  by  cartoons 66 

Buddhism 136,  147 

Business 

Business  men  too  influential,  says  sociologist     .  322 

Better  understanding  needful 95 

Fear         94 

Troubles 280 

C 

California  undergraduate  writes 289 

Carlyle,    quoted  concerning  literature,   humor,   and 

prophecy         9,  46,  62,  333 

Carnegie 23 

Catholic  church 200 

Charities 337 

Chinese  responsibility 262 

Chinese  ancestor  worship 75 


360  Index 


PAGE 


Chinese  poet,  quoted 156 

Citizenship  and  the  colleges 179 

Christianity  and  war 217,  221 

Christianity  for  the  individual  .      .      .      .     212,  220 

Church,  contemporary  opinion  of      ....      193,  199 

Churchill,  Winston 48 

City,  church  life 207 

Clemens,  S 27,  62 

Clough,  John  E.,  autobiography       ....     144,  145 

Clergyman  on  national  tendencies 293 

Clement  of  Alexandria  regarding  riches  ....  274 
Columbia  University,  teacher  quoted  ....  299 
Comenius,  Bishop — ideal  of  education  .  .  .  .  167 

Columbus — sailed  to  find  East 129 

Core  of  Christian  religion 222 

Coit,  Stanton 44 

Culture  and  agriculture 168 

Commons,  Prof.  John  R 34 

Cornell,  Ezra,  foundation  idea  of  university  .      .      .      169 

Constitution,  American  72,  73,   198 

Constitution,  British 80 

Cleveland  Immigration  League  described       .      .      .     240 

Country  life,  attraction  of 281 

Culture  defined  by  Frenchman 178 

D 

Dairy  Department  in  university,  research  work        .  170 

Daniels,  Josephus 66 

Debts,  disgrace  of  in  country  sections  ....  281 
Democracy 

Lincoln's  idea 69 

Square  deal 71, 74 

Universal  desire  for  81 


Index  361 

Democracy — Continued  PACK 

In  Canada 82 

Gain  in  respect  for  law 85 

Dependent  on  sacrifice  and  brotherhood       .     95,  340 

Utopian  vagaries  relative  to 90 

Denominations,  religious,  number  of 197 

Dharma,  its  place  in  India 139 

Dickens,  receipt  for  happiness 280 

Discipline,  lacking  in  public  institutions         .      .      .  259 

Drama 214 

Drink  problem 78, 288 

Drummond,  Henry 267 


E 

East  India,  heart  of  Asia 134 

Eaton,  Walter  Prichard 52 

Edison,  Thomas  A 12,  103 

Education 

An  American  passion 157 

Classical 166 

Coalescing  with  life 168 

Cost  of 161 

Definition  of 178 

Educational  Alliance 238 

Growth  of 160 

Industrial 86,315 

Intellectual  independence 162 

Practical 165 

Spiritual  culture 174 

Teachers 173 

Variety  of 169 

Vocational 171 

Waywardness  of 173 


362  Index 

PAGE 

Edwards,  Jonathan         197 

Efficiency  engineering 10 

Eliot,  Charles  W.,  concerning  Mr.  Roosevelt       .      .  45 

definition  of  educated  man 159 

Emerson,  quoted 25,  97,  147,  163 

Egyptian  Government  students 173 

Engineer  tells  of  professional  aims 293 

English  versus  American  ideals                          81,  108,  268 

Ellis  Island  immigrants 247 

Equality,  educational,  political,  and  social  74,  89,  91,  164 

Essay  writers 56,  62,  63 

Ettrick  Shepherd 21 

Extravagance             271,  272 

Spending  for  show         275 

Spending  leading  to  inefficiency 279 

Testimony  of  Congressman 319 

Testimony  of  multimillionaire 314 

F 

Fair  play  ideal 73 

Family  pride 65 

Farmer  writes  of  his  views 302 

Fear  as  a  national  menace  to  prosperity  93 

Fiction,  present  day 46 

Fielding 55 

Fifth  Avenue 276 

Filipino  politicians 81 

First  National  Congress 73 

Florentine  goldsmith 246 

Ford,  Henry         41 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  quoted II 

Freedom,  the  uniting  force  of 350 

Free  schools 164 


Index  363 


PAGE 


Frohman,  Charles,  honesty  of 88 

Frost,  Robert 52 

G 

Galsworthy,  John 104 

Gary  plan  of  education 170 

George,  Lloyd,  political  speeches 107 

Germany         23 

Example  of  social  religion 215 

Immigration  from 231 

State  church 199 

Uniformity  of  education 164 

Gilman,  Daniel  C,  ideal  of  education 175 

Gladstone  regarding  original  sin 219 

Goethe _^.      .      .  35 

Goethals  and  Panama  Canal 58 

Governor,  State,  regarding  national  tendencies   .      .  288 

Government  compared  with  England        .      .      .      .  310 

popular  influence 322 

Grant,  U.  S.,  ideas  of  peace 343 

Grecian  women  and  racial  traditions         ....  74 

Greek  thought  contribution  to  America    .      .      .      .  131 

Gobble,  Francis,  concerning  Jowett 107 

H 

Habits,  definition  of 180 

Haldane,  Lord,  on  international  understanding     .      .  99 

Harper,  William  R 7 

Harriman,  E.  H 27 

Hasting,  H.  L.,  lecturer 76 

Hay,  John,  quoted          69,  86,  344 

Headmaster  points  out  change  of  ideals    ....  296 

Henry,  O 49 


364  Index 

PAGE 

Hindu  versus  American  religion 136 

Hindu  at  Ganges 75 

Holmes,  O.  W 9 

Honor,  spirit  of,  needed 320 

Humanity,  ideals  of 341,346 

Humor,  American  type 60-67 

Huxley,  Thomas,  definition  of  education        .      .      .  178 

I 
Ideals 

Accomplishment 30 

American  versus  Oriental 127 

Bigness 13 

Business 71 

Church,  Christian 193,  224 

Democratic         78 

Display  of  wealth 282 

Economic 21 

Education 172,  174 

Existing  in  thought 329 

Importance  of ix 

Individual  regeneration 211 

Leisure 308 

Liberty 79 

Missionary 143 

Peace  and  humanity 341 

Public  responsibility 289 

Racial 74 

Religious 193 

Seen  by  Americans 288 

Self-indulgence         307 

Service ~ 212 

Social  uplift 211 

Success    .                        26 


Index  365 

Ideals — Continued  PAGE 

Summarized 304-305 

Timesaving 12 

Unfulfilled 84 

Weakness  of 254 

Immigrant,  attitude  toward 229 

Agencies 234 

Hope  of  problem 235 

Number  of 229-233 

Artistry  among 246 

Ingersoll,  Robert 76 

India 

Division  of  life         141 

Millet  fields 12 

Mother  of  Idealism 134 

Ruled  by 178 

Individualism 

Christian 220 

Decides  equality 92 

Importance  of 346 

Intemperance 309 

Interstate  Commerce  Commission 94 

j 

James,  Professor,  on  effort  and  philosophy     .      .183,  186 

Japanese  gardens 39 

Jefferson,  writer  of  "delegated  power"     ....  335 

Jewish  kingdom 347-348 

Jewish  scientist  on  tendency  of  nation      ....  301 

Jordan,  David  Starr,  regarding  progress  of  democracy  88 

Joubert,  definition  of  religion 191 

K 

Karr,  Alfcnse 61 

Keate,  Doctor,  story  of  at  Eton 177 


366  Index 

PAGE 

Kilmer,  Joyce 51 

Kingsley,  Charles,  on  "Peace  of  Mood"  .      ...     152 
King  George  in  India 275 


Labor  conditions 309 

Lamb,  Charles,  after-dinner  speech 63 

Larned,  Colonel,  regarding  West  Point  curriculum   .      181 

Latin  temperament         345 

Laws 

and  religion 223 

Lack  of  respect  for 254,  256,  306 

Taft  on  criminal  law 256 

Lawyer  in  West  gives  result  of  investigation        .      .     303 

Lewis  and  Clarke 334-335 

Liberality  of  young  clergyman 195 

Liberty,  religious 302 

Librarian  regarding  "social  standing"  ....  294 
Life  insurance  president  regarding  business  ideals  .  302 
Lincoln,  Abraham 

His  heart  quality 103 

Prayer  regarding  war 343 

Relative  to  books 47 

Lindsay,  N.  V 5° 

Literature,  contemporary 46,  299 

Realistic  ideals  of          56 

Livingstone,  explorer,  quoted 337 

Londoner's  view  of  working  classes  ....  277-278 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  quoted  relative  to  democracy  and 

education 62,  77,  161 

Lynchings 256 


Index  367 
M 

PAGE 

McClure,  S.  S.,  devotion  to  business 6 

McCutcheon,  George  Barr,  quoted 57 

Magazine  editor  regarding  ideal 292 

Maine  farmer,  incident  of 64 

Markham,  Edwin 52 

Masters,  E.  L 51 

Material  prosperity,  display  of 271,  307 

Mayflower  company 171 

Milnes,  Richard  Monckton 31 

Milton  quoted  on  peace  and  war 265 

Missionaries  in  India           44,  143 

a  unique  method 267 

Moody,  D.  L 62 

Morgan,  J.  P 42 

Muckraking 55>2i5 

Muir,  John 26 

Muhammad,  religious  laws 222 

Multimillionaire  mine  owner  on  national  failures      .  314 

Miiller,  Max,  quoted 125 

Municipal  Immigration  Bureau,  Cleveland,  Ohio      .  241 
Murray,    Prof.    Gilbert,    contrasting    English    and 

American  students 123 

N 

Naidu,  Sarojini 138 

Napoleon 

Attitude  to  obstacles 5 

Dreams  of  new  France  in  the  United  States      .  334 

In  Egypt 129 

Napoleonic  not  Christian         218 

Nationality,  difficult  of  translation 100 

Nationalization    .  28 


368  Index 


PAGE 


New  Jersey  official  relative  to  our  contemporary  life  .  320 
Newspapers 

As  present  forces 193 

Publicity  agents 263 

John  Hay's  address  to  the  Press 344 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  quoted 152 

New  York,  immigration  problem 239 

Nuremburg,  old  wood  carver  of 245 

O 

Okuma,  Count,  interview  concerning  needs  of  Japan  225 

Orange,  William  of 201 

Orient 

Becoming  westernized 139 

Brahmin  caste  rigid 134 

Home  of  "things  invisible" 129 

Interchange  of  ideas  necessary 132 

Mysticism  similar  to  that  of  Americans        .      .  154 

Sympathetic  imagination  needful       ....  133 

Oriental  versus  American 127,  274 

Oriental 58,131 

Oxford  repression 105 

Oxford  Union  debates 106 

P 

Palmer,  Professor,  quoted 95 

Panama-Pacific  Exposition 15 

Isthmus  of          336 

Canal  Bill 87 

Parker,  Theodore,  definition  of  Democracy    ...  85 

Participation  of  people  in  making  laws     ....  80 

Past,  necessary  to  regard 130 


Index  369 

PAGE 

Pastors  relative  to  admission  of  church  members        .  200 
Peace 

Victories  of        265 

Ideals  of 341 

Unstained 270 

Peace-at-any-price,  foe  to  democracy  .      .      .        263,  269 

Peabody,  Francis,  quoted          1 86 

Pennsylvania  State  Bar  Association 256 

Personality       ....          188 

Perspective,  need  of 318 

Philanthropy 213 

Phillips,  Wendell 63 

Physician's  estimate  of  profession 294 

Pilgrim  ancestry,  educational  influence     ....  161 

Pinkertons 255 

Playwright  quoted 290 

Poet,  ideals  of 307 

Poetry,  contemporary  50-52 

Preparatory  schools,  character  of  boys      .      .      .      .  176 

Press  Parliament,  John  Hay's  address       ....  343 

Princeton 58 

Prohibition  laws 258 

Public  schools,  English 120-121 

Public  opinion 79 

Publicity  as  a  means  of  saving  the  State  .      .      .      .  215 

Publisher  regarding  American  aims 297 

Q 

Quietness — the  gift  of  Asia 148 

R 

Railroad  officials 219 

Real-estate  man's  ideals 292 


370  Index 

PAGE 

Reform  movements  and  weakness  of  same     .     .  213,  321 
Religion 

American  versus  Eastern 136 

College 196-208 

Discussion  of 201,   206 

Defined 191 

Temperament  of  people 210 

Social  betterment          211 

"Rights" 75,  108 

Riis,  Jacob 26 

Rockefeller,  J.  D 23 

Roberts,  Dr.  Peter,  on  immigration 237 

Root,  Elihu          xi 

Roosevelt,  Theodore 45>335 

Russia,  vodka  legislation 79 

S 
Sanyassis 141 

Scandinavian  immigration 231 

SchaufHer,  R.  H.,  poem  quoted 248 

Schoolmaster,  giving  summary  of  ideals  of  France    .     301 

School  discipline 181 

Scott,  W 55 

Self-made  men 104 

Seneca's  pilot  quoted 330 

Service,  public 195,  213,  289 

Settlements,  social 203 

Social  betterment  as  an  ideal          211 

Socialism  as  a  religion  and  danger 210,  318 

Socialist  editor  summarizes  ideals 296 

Socrates ~ 224 

Square  deal  sentiment  in  college  and  everyday 

affairs  .  ....    .71,  87,  88 


Index  371 


PACE 


Stanford,  Senator,  founding  university     .      .      .      .     163 

Stanley,  Henry  M I 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,    quoted    regarding   style,    English, 

and  money         54,  105,  287 

Sunday,  attitude  toward 200 

Success,  as  an  ideal 26,  253 

Symonds,  J.  A.,  regarding  Whitman  philosophy       .      148 
Symposium,  an  American          285 

T 
Taft,  ex-President,  on  prosperity  and  criminal  law  95,  256 

Tarkington,  Booth          52 

Teachers 

Needed 173 

Obligation  of 175 

of  Columbia 185 

Science  and  religion 185 

Students'  opinion  of 187 

Twofold  work 175 

Theology  versus  science 197 

Times  Square  incident 201 

Tolerance,  growth  of,  etc 198,  203,  205,  262 

Turkish  description  of  social  duties 150 

Twain,  Mark,  quoted 27,  48,  65 

U 

United  States  Bureau  of  Education     .      .      .      .      .      163 
United  States 

Her  unique  periods 338,   339 

Her  obligation 339 

Her  responsibility  to  Europe         353 

University  of  Michigan  professor  on  national  weak 
ness      313 


372  Index 

V 

PAGE 

Van  Dyke,  Henry     , 89 

Vice-president  of  trust  company  on  Wall  Street  ideals  300 
Vitae  Lampada,  Henry  Newbolt's  poem  .  .  .  .177 
"Votes  for  Women"  .  .  ' 75 

W 

Wade,  George,  characterizing  Americans        .      .      .  333 

Waller,  W.  P.,  on  immigration 243 

War  and  Christianity 217 

War  dependent  on  human  nature 264 

place  in  civilization 265 

Washington  on  peace 343 

Weaknesses  in  contemporary  life 306-324 

Wealth 

High  cost  of  living 24 

Love  of  money  and  display 21,283 

Menace  of 273 

Testimony  by  editor  of  large  weekly  paper     .      .  216 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  on  habits 180 

Wells,  H.  G.,  on  immigrants 227,  230 

Welton,  J.,  on  theory  of  education 157 

Wesley 44 

West  Point  Academy 181 

Whitman,  Walt,  regarding  Americans       .      .      .      .  331 

Wilde,  Oscar 7 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  quoted  and  referred  to 

58,  79,  152,  329,  352 

Winchester  schoolmaster  testimony           ....  166 
Wister,  Owen,  regarding  literary  criticism  and  Amer 
ica        „ 47>33i 

Wordsworth,  quoted 

Work,  hours  of,  in  college 183 


Index  373 

PAGE 

World  affairs,  American  opportunity  in    .      .      .      .     351 
Wu  Ting  Fang,  characterization  of  Chinese         .      .      283 

Y 

Yankee  humor  and  notions 11,13,63 

Yellow  Sea  incident  with  Scotchman         .      .      .      .  117 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association 

Acting  secretary  quoted 243 

Witness  of  officials  in  West  and  South       .      290,  314 

Work  and  classes  for  immigrants       ....  238 

Z 

Zimmern,  A.  E.,  defines  America 340 


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A  Library  of  Good  Citizenship 

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